


Nothing Beside Remains

by freosan



Series: Nothing Beside Remains [2]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Carlos is Human, Cecil is Mostly Human, Desert Bluffs Carlos is not Diego, Fear for Night Vale, Gen, Kevin is mostly human, M/M, Strexcorp, doppelgangers, there is so much blood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-10 23:20:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1165795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freosan/pseuds/freosan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Desert Bluffs is gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter of this fic has been edited as of May 2014. I have removed all references to previous history between Kevin and Carlos. As such, I've removed some of the tagged warnings, as well.

_Desert Bluffs is gone. Unfortunately, there are survivors. Welcome to Night Vale._

Carlos hears Cecil’s opening lines and pauses in his work. Cecil doesn’t often carry on to explain what the hell he meant by his cold open, but Carlos holds out hope, because would really like to hear more about this. Desert Bluffs gone? Is Cecil being literal or metaphorical? Did it just disappear or was it destroyed? If destroyed, by whom? What does he mean, survivors?

Why did it have to be Desert Bluffs? Carlos had sincerely hoped never to have to even hear the name of that place again.

Cecil’s first story is no help at all; it’s about Night Vale High’s football quarterback recovering from surgery. Carlos grumbles and ignores it. He never cared much for football at home and he’s not about to start now, especially with the possibility of having gills grafted to him if he shows up for a game. Coach al-Mujaheed wouldn’t even let Carlos take photos of Michael Sandero’s second head.

Carlos plots a few more data points and keeps half an ear on the radio waiting for Cecil to mention something else about Desert Bluffs. Nothing’s gone horribly wrong in the last week or so, so he’s finally getting his radiation readings plotted versus a map of the town; it’s exactly as dispiriting as he feared it would be. The radiation levels seem to change over time, but in erratic ways, and nowhere inside the borders of Night Vale is within an acceptable range of exposure.

This kind of routine danger is barely enough to hold his interest anymore, though, and he hasn’t got his brain back in line before he’s interrupted again. This time it’s his research assistant, Tim, skittering into the room waving a clipboard.

“Dr. Carreras? I have the readings you asked for -“

Carlos shushes him. On the radio, Cecil has started talking about the survivors. It seems that his words were _not_ metaphorical. Desert Bluffs survivors are gathered at City Hall, and all Night Vale citizens are requested to come by and pick up their doppelgängers.

“Seriously?” Carlos asks the radio and the world in general. Cecil doesn’t answer, because he has moved on to the Glow Cloud’s latest antics. Carlos has never cared less about the mysterious supply of dead animals.

“The doubles? Yeah,” Tim answers Carlos’s rhetorical question. “I saw the group of them. The Secret Police made me stop and make sure I didn’t have a double in the crowd.”

“And you didn’t?” Carlos asks. He pushes his chair back and turns around to double-check. Tim still looks like himself: eight shining black eyes, eight enormous spider legs, and a veil of cobwebs covering most of his body. That’s a relief. Carlos really doubts the spiders would take anyone from Desert Bluffs.

“Nope. Whatever happened, I think a lot of people are dead,” Tim tells him. “There are only about five hundred or so.”

“So they must have lost ten thousand, at least.” Carlos frowns. “I thought we were just supposed to kill our doubles, anyway.”

Tim crosses his arms and two of his legs. “That’s not exactly welcoming. They’re refugees.”

Carlos sighs. He has no problems with refugees as a class. Hell, his name is on half a dozen petitions for refugees from the blood-space war Night Vale is supporting. His problems are with particular refugees. Particular refugees from Desert Bluffs. Particular refugees who look a lot like his boyfriend.

_I myself have been informed that my double is among the crowd, and I look forward to meeting with him once again as soon as this broadcast is over!_

Carlos’s head snaps up. That’s just _wrong_. Carlos knows what happened to Cecil during the sandstorm; Cecil would never sound so excited about meeting with Kevin.

“Dr. Carreras, are you okay?” Tim asks. “You look like you saw a ghost.”

Carlos shakes his head, brushing Tim off. Cecil’s supervisor must be breathing down his neck. Carlos is well aware that Cecil can project whatever he happens to want to with his voice while the entire rest of his body is displaying some other, possibly completely opposed, emotion. StrexCorp wouldn’t like Night Vale to say anything against their refugees.

“I’d better get to City Hall,” he decides, and stands up. His open laptop beeps an accusation at him, and he scowls at it. “Tim, can you finish up this plot?”

“Yeah! But are you sure you’re okay?” 

Carlos nods, and Tim skitters into place at his desk. Tim’s only been here a few months, not quite long enough for the shine to have worn off the weirdness yet, even though the weirdness has taken its toll on him. He’ll enjoy even fairly mundane data gathering, and Carlos will be able to worry about other things.

Carlos grabs his lab coat on the way out the door. He rarely if ever wears it in the actual lab, but in Night Vale it’s always better to project your allegiances. People feel safer if they can identify others right off. He doesn’t want anyone to look at him and feel unsafe. Everyone’s probably even more unnerved than normal right now, with a bunch of doubles running around.

He walks to City Hall. It’s not far, and he sees enough cars heading for it that he doubts he’d find parking anyhow. There are a few pairs of people already walking away. They’re matched, but not exactly. Sometimes there are women leading men who could be their brothers back through the streets, sometimes there are people who are the same gender, height, and appearance except for their eyes, or their hair. Carlos doesn’t like to think about the sandstorm, but he remembers it well; the sandstorm doubles were exactly the same, down to the clothing. Tentative hypothesis: the doubles didn’t come from Desert Bluffs, despite Cecil’s trip to meet Kevin.

There are a lot more people walking towards City Hall than away from it. Carlos supposes that people didn’t hear about this until the broadcast, same as he did. The crowd becomes steadily more chaotic the closer he gets to the courtyard.

Carlos is keeping an eye out for Secret Police, an eye out for people who look like himself, and an eye out for Kevin. It’s a real shame that he doesn’t have Cecil’s advantage in eye count, because he fails to notice his own double until said double taps him on the shoulder.

Carlos jumps, and then backs away warily; his double seems to be alone. Slightly reassured, Carlos looks him over.

He is the same height as Carlos, with hair like his, eyes like his, a mouth like his. No glasses, Carlos notes, but he’s betting on contacts. He wears a blood-stained white lab coat, a pinstriped dress shirt, and slacks. Carlos’s own coat is only stained with unidentifiable black smears, but his Metallica t-shirt and faded jeans feel a little informal.

“Hello,” the double says. He gives Carlos a shy smile. Good god. Does he really look through his eyelashes like that? “You must be, uh, me.”

“It looks like it. I’m Carlos.” 

“Santino,” his double says, and holds out his hand. Carlos hesitates.

“I’m not native to Desert Bluffs. I won’t hurt you for the hell of it,” Santino says. Carlos gives him a nods and takes his hand.

He expects a spark, or an explosion, or something to mark the occasion, but Santino’s hand is just a normal hand. Slightly warm. Santino lets out an exaggerated sigh of relief when they let go.

“I was sure that was going to end badly,” he says. 

Carlos smiles slightly. “Agreed. But I guess if anyone were going to explode from touching doubles someone would’ve done it by now.”

“Yeah. This is a lot better than the last time. I don’t even know how I’d kill you; they took my knife when we came into town,” Santino says cheerfully. “I guess I could strangle you but that takes a while.”

“Friendly advice, that’s not how we talk around here,” Carlos tells him. 

Santino opens his mouth to say something else, but Carlos misses it - he’s distracted by the yells of a crowd being surprised behind him. Recognizing and categorizing the signs of herd alarm has been both a hobby and a survival skill for him. Right now he hears shock, but not fear. They’re probably fine. 

Beside him and a little back Santino makes the same calculation. Both of them step sideways and turn towards the disturbance at the same time.

Cecil is running towards Carlos like the hounds of hell are after him, pushing the crowd out of the way with his arms and tentacles. Around him people are looking for the danger, but Carlos sees nothing more unusual than Cecil himself.

Cecil skids to a stop in front of Carlos, at least half his tentacles bristling high above his head. “Carlos, he is _here_ ,” he says. His voice is an angry hiss. 

“Cecil, calm down, you’re scaring people,” he says, but then he stops, because he’s seen what Cecil is talking about.

Cecil is pursued by his double. Well, actually, “pursued” is a strong word; the man ambles along, nodding to nearly everyone he passes, until he stops right in front of their small group.

“Cecil, I don’t see any reason to be so standoffish,” he says.

Cecil turns around, outright growling in that disturbingly inhuman way he has, to meet the newcomer. Carlos stares through Cecil’s waving tentacles. The double really does look _exactly_ like Cecil. Too much like Cecil, so much so that his black, blank, empty eyes are not merely unnerving, but gut-wrenchingly awful, when Carlos attempts to look at him.

Santino takes a few steps towards his boyfriend, away from Carlos and from Cecil’s anger, and puts a hand on his shoulder. 

“I think that’s close enough, baby,” he says. “Uh, Carlos, Cecil, this is Kevin.”

Cecil growls again.

"It's so good to meet you, Carlos!" Kevin says, apparently unfazed by Cecil's tension. "I've heard so much about you."

“Kevin, don't," Santino groans, but he's smiling a little.

"Santino's just upset because you keep scooping him," Kevin tells Carlos.

Carlos frowns. “Scooping him?"

"At least once a month, I hear 'Dr. Carreras published _again_ ', and then screaming." Kevin's grin intensifies. "I think it's good for him. Keeps him on his toes!"

Carlos glances between them and then something clicks into place in the back of his head. "You're _that_ Dr. Locklear," he says. "Oh wow. I kept sending you letters asking to collaborate."

"I did the same thing! But you didn't answer in eight months, so I gave up," Santino tells him, shrugging.

"I would have if I'd gotten them. You're the only person publishing results anything like mine… I had no idea you were in Desert Bluffs. Your mailing address is in California."

"Yours is in _Massachusetts._ Anyway, only about half the country accepts that Desert Bluffs exists at any given time. It's a little easier if I get things sent to the home office."

"Yeah, same. But they only forward my mail once in a blue moon. Uh, literally."

"No, I understand. I only get mail when there's a significant enough solar flare."

Carlos notes Kevin's smile growing wider as they talk. In contrast, Cecil's fingers on his get more and more fidgety. Carlos takes Cecil's hand in both of his, pulling him closer.

"You two have had a long day," he says. "Want us to take you home?"

Maybe Cecil will be calmer on his home territory. Alternative hypothesis, Cecil will be more stressed out with Kevin in his house; but they're going to have to go home eventually, and Carlos would really like a cup of tea.

"That would be wonderful, Carlos, thank you," Kevin says. Santino nods his agreement.

Cecil doesn't speak much on the way home. He stays between Carlos and Kevin the whole time, throwing dark glances over at his double and clinging to Carlos's hand. Carlos doesn't really blame him, but it makes things just a tiny bit more incredibly awkward than they already are.

They make it home without killing each other. Carlos makes tea. Cecil seethes with impotent rage. Kevin does not drip blood on the carpet, though he does smear some on the couch. Santino attempts to flirt with both Cecil and Carlos no fewer than three times each.

It could have been worse, Carlos figures. It could have been a lot worse.

* * *

 

Carlos wakes up the next morning hoping that it's still yesterday and the weird Desert Bluffs double thing was just an unusually vivid shared dream. Unfortunately, he has no such luck. He can smell bacon cooking, and Cecil is still beside him in the bed. So unless the Faceless Old Woman has decided to attempt to be a decent houseguest, there's somebody else in the house.

Carlos fumbles for his glasses and sits up. Normally he'd just walk around the house in his boxers until he had to get dressed, but there's no way he's doing that today. He finds his bathrobe at the back of the closet instead. Thus armored, he heads into the kitchen.

There is bacon going, as well as a pile of eggs. Santino is pouring orange juice into four glasses. Kevin has control of the stove. They look shockingly domestic.

"Good morning?" Carlos tries. Both of them look around at him and grin. Santino's lip is split. Carlos thinks he would have noticed that last night if his double had had it then. He decides he’s not going in the guest room any time soon.

"Good morning, Carlos!" Kevin chirps.

"Hey, Carlos. Confirm a hypothesis?" When he talks the cut in his lip starts bleeding slightly. He licks at it but otherwise doesn't seem disturbed. Well, that's fine, Carlos can be disturbed for both of them.

"Sure?" he says.

"Did Cecil organize this kitchen, or did you?"

Carlos blinks. "Cecil. He does most of the cooking."

"I told you, baby," Santino says to Kevin.

"You're always right," Kevin replies, with a smile.

"Kevin figured out his way around the kitchen without even thinking about it, but I couldn't," Santino explains to Carlos. "I'm guessing because he knows how he'd lay out a kitchen like this. I'm going to have to do some research on the double thing."

Carlos nods, then stifles a yawn. The coffee pot is on Santino's other side, nearest Kevin. He debates walking over there and decides he'd rather be tired than risk getting any closer.

"Shouldn't Cecil be up by now?" Kevin asks. "Station management can be very touchy about coming in late."

Carlos looks at the clock, which is kind enough to glow a little brighter for him. "It's five-thirty."

"Oh, dear. I should go wake him."

"Don't, he might take your head off. He doesn't go in until eleven."

Kevin and Santino both stare at him like he's grown a second head. Carlos checks to make sure he hasn't. 

"What?" he asks. "The show isn't on until seven-ish."

"Wow," Santino says. "This place really is different."

Kevin shakes his head. "I never expected such a lack of work ethic. It's no wonder everything is so backwards here."

"Kevin," Santino says warningly.

"I'm sorry, Carlos. I didn't mean to insult your home."

Carlos sighs. “It’s fine, but don’t say that around Cecil."

"Well. We made breakfast, anyway. I thought we'd see if we could accompany you to work today! Your employers would surely appreciate having doubles of their employees."

Santino nods. "I figure I'm most useful in the lab," he says. "Even if you can't put me on the payroll.”

“I can get funding for another researcher. They’ll be thrilled I found someone who’ll survive longer than a week,” Carlos says absently. He’s watching Kevin fry the bacon. He doesn’t seem to be putting anything else in it, but Carlos is debating the merits of simply refusing the food.

Santino steps past him to take the juice to the table. Carlos follows far enough to put a counter between himself and Kevin, now that Santino’s not there anymore. He doesn’t know if Santino notices; he doesn’t know if _he’d_ notice, if their situations were reversed. Probably not.

“I’m going in pretty soon,” he says. “I’ve got some reactions going that should be finished at seven or so. If you want to come, Santino, that’s fine.”

“Practically sounds like a vacation,” Santino says. “Are you up for entertaining yourself for a while, Kevin?”

“Oh, I’ll be fine here,” Kevin says. He walks past Carlos carrying a tray. Carlos turns as Kevin moves so that he’s always facing him.

Good lord. The last time he was this wary of anything, it was eighteen feet tall and made entirely of an absence of light. And he’s pretty sure he was only scared because it was putting out subsonic waves. Kevin is frightening in an entirely different way from everything else he’s faced in Night Vale. Nothing else is personal. 

Carlos hates it. Carlos should go back to bed and forget about all this. Maybe if he keeps the covers over his head long enough, Desert Bluffs will reappear. Or Carlos will suffocate. Either would be preferable to standing in this kitchen, unable to breathe because his boyfriend’s clone is smiling at him and offering him eggs.

Santino brushes by Carlos on his way back to the kitchen counter. Carlos jumps about six inches.

“Hey. Relax,” Santino says, smiling very slightly. The light through the window hits his hair at precisely the right angle to make it shine like a shampoo commercial. Carlos does not know why he is noticing this.

“It’s kind of hard, with…” he nods his head towards Kevin. Kevin is portioning out food. He looks like somebody’s mother, only, you know, evil.

Santino grimaces. “Yeah, I know. But he won’t hurt you. You’re hosting. I promise.”

Carlos doesn’t know Santino from Adam, but Santino is also him. Carlos knows _he_ wouldn’t make a promise like that and not intend to back it up. It’s enough. He sits down to breakfast. Carlos even eats, after Santino does. Carlos is willing to believe that Kevin wouldn’t put anything in Santino’s food that would permanently damage him.

After breakfast, Kevin insists on cleaning up while Carlos and Santino get ready for work. Carlos is more than happy to get out of the kitchen, even though sharing the bathroom is awkward, and Carlos has to show Santino how to use his phone camera to shave. Kevin, apparently, doesn’t have Cecil’s fear of mirrors.

When Carlos gets back into the bedroom, he gets dressed, and then he pokes Cecil until his boyfriend rolls over and cracks open his middle eye.

“Hey, I have to go to work,” Carlos says.

“I’ll see you tonight,” Cecil murmurs, and buries his face in the pillow again.

Carlos pulls on his shoulder. “I’m taking Santino to the lab. Kevin’s staying here.”

Cecil rolls over and Carlos watches him go through the same confusion-denial-resignation cycle he’d experienced on waking up.

“Yeah, I know. But I didn’t want you asleep and alone in the house with him.”

Cecil sits up and nods. “Thank you, Carlos. Don’t worry about me,” he says. “I can defend myself if I need to.”

“Call me if I should come home,” Carlos tells him. “I’ll drop anything and come running.”

“My brave Carlos,” Cecil says with a soft smile. “Go to work. I’ll take Kevin to the studio with me. At least he should get along with the new management.”

Carlos kisses Cecil on the cheek. “Love you,” he says quietly. 

“I love you too, Carlos.”

Santino and Kevin have their own morning goodbye ritual, which Carlos walks in on when he comes back into the living room. He tries not to watch but it's morbidly fascinating. The kiss is less a kiss and more an extended bite. Santino comes away from it with freshly bloodied lips and a grin.

He winks at Carlos when he sees him staring. Carlos jerks his gaze away so fast he nearly gives himself whiplash. Santino has enough grace not to needle him about it, and just stays quiet while Carlos locks up.

"So. Experiments, huh? What have you been working on?"

Carlos squints up at the sky. It looks like it might be a taupe kind of day. Those are always a bit weird. 

“Jamie - our biologist - got a bit ambitious. We’re trying to isolate the genes for the physical mutations we’re seeing around here. There are a few broad classes of them, and we want to know if they’re related.”

"The - wait. Back up. There's more than just you?"

Santino sounds completely incredulous. Carlos tilts his head, finally looking at the other scientist. "Well, yeah. They weren't going to send me by myself. There's been… some turnover, but we have six people on the team right now."

"Holy shit," Santino says. "I was the only person who lasted two months."

"You didn't get any replacements?" Carlos asks in disbelief. He’s been training up inexperienced lab assistants and postdocs looking for a discovery for the last year. Two out of three of them have disappeared, one way or another.

"It didn't seem ethical to bring a bunch of out-of-shape kids fresh out of school in to get their heads ripped off."

Carlos nods and doesn't ask if Santino was being metaphorical; he doesn't need the confirmation. "I'm the only member of the original team, but we've only, uh, lost three. Mostly people just pack up and leave."

"You're allowed to leave here?"

"Are you not in Desert Bluffs?"

"It's… discouraged, let's put it that way. Unless you're on official StrexCorp business."

"I have yet to find a single person who’s made a home in this town who wants to go anywhere else," Carlos tells him.

"One up on Desert Bluffs, then."

They walk in silence most of the rest of the way, Santino occasionally pointing out oddities that Carlos has become completely familiar with. He tries to explain about the helicopters - Santino only recognizes the yellow ones - and impress upon his double the importance of never thinking about the dog park.

They cut through the parking lot to get to the lab space, and Carlos sees it once again as he did when he came here: an oversized, obviously uncared-for building, made entirely of cinderblocks and concrete, half-forgotten at the back of the lot. The three picture windows at the front are mostly blocked off with whiteboards and taped-up bits of paper, but it’s still possible to see people moving inside.

Santino looks at it with his head cocked. Carlos raises an eyebrow at him.

“It’s not a lot of space, is it?” Santino says. “Kind of…” he frowns, clearly searching for words.

“You can say it’s a shithole if you want to. Just get it all out,” Carlos tells him dryly. Santino shrugs.

“My lab’s a lot more, uh, modern,” he says.

“Your lab doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Thanks for that. That’s helpful.”

“Come inside.”

Santino looks warily at the doorframe as he passes it, but he follows Carlos in anyway.

Despite the slightly rocky start, Santino’s day at the labs goes pretty well. Carlos can’t say that he doesn’t flinch when he meets Tim, because he absolutely does, but he gets over it fast enough to shake his hand and say hello.

The rest of the team shows up inside the hour. Cheyenne flirts with Santino, because of course she does. He seems to have more in common with her than Carlos does - unlike Carlos, apparently, Santino went in for philosophy in undergrad. Jamie looks him up and down and tells Carlos that he should be taking fashion tips from his doppelgänger. Rachelle says hello and then runs away, the better to give the two of them nervous glances over the edge of her laptop the entire morning. Carlos just sighs and sets Santino up with one of the many abandoned, crappy laptops and a tape recorder.

They do blood samples and saliva samples and tiny little tissue samples, just for the hell of it. They’ll do the full genome later, when they can get hold of the proper equipment, but even in the lab they can do basic DNA sequencing.

They’re terrifyingly close. Carlos should have expected nothing less.

“Don’t commit any crimes,” Santino says, looking at the results.

“I wouldn’t be sloppy enough to leave DNA evidence,” Carlos mutters. “Jesus.”

“This literally should not be.” Santino runs his hand through his hair, a gesture of frustration Carlos is very familiar with. “I mean, what are the odds? It’s got to be one in a few hundred million at least.”

“Closer to one in a billion,” Jamie pipes up. “Congratulations, guys. Time to buy lottery tickets.”

“I really didn’t expect Night Vale weirdness to care about genetic markers.” Carlos runs his hand through his hair as he stares at the pages of data.

“Desert Bluffs weirdness might,” Santino says. “They’re very big on bioengineering there. But, I mean, neither of us were born in the twin cities.”

“No,” Carlos agrees. But he’s still choosing to blame this on Night Vale. Or Desert Bluffs. Things like this simply do not happen anywhere else in the world, barring possibly the strange and unknowable places one can only get to from the Night Vale airport. “Alright. Let’s… go work on something else for a bit.”

Santino nods and they let Jamie do the rest of the analysis.

It’s pretty quiet at the lab that day, no big emergencies or alarms. In fact, Carlos is feeling good about it, until the radio comes on that evening. He should have known better. The cold open isn’t anything more unexpected than usual, but what follows immediately after is: _Listeners, I must regretfully inform you that our station intern, Theresa, has been killed. My Desert Bluffs counterpart, Kevin, following the traditions of that wretched city, has murdered her in order to take her place at the radio station._

“Fuck,” Carlos says, in stereo. He looks over his left shoulder to see Santino staring back at him, mirroring the horror he’s sure is on his own face.

“Should we go to -“ they both say at once, and stop. Carlos makes a gesture for Santino to go ahead, just milliseconds before Santino does the same thing.

“We should go to the radio station,” Santino says.

“Before anyone else dies,” Carlos adds, nodding. He’s already up and buttoning his lab coat. Santino closes the lids on their laptops.

“Interns die at the station all the time,” Cheyenne pipes up from across the room. “What’s up with this one?”

“Kevin killed her,” Carlos and Santino say, in unison.

A brief conversation consisting mostly of raised eyebrows later, Carlos continues. “Interns are almost never killed by other people. Just events. Cecil will… Cecil gets extremely angry when he thinks one of the interns’ deaths was unnecessary.”

“And I just don’t want to see Kevin arrested for something like that,” Santino finishes up. “It’s not his fault you have weird customs here.”

“‘Weird customs’ like not killing people to take their jobs?” Carlos asks him, in disbelief.

“Yeah. That’s pretty weird,” Santino says. 

Carlos herds him out of the lab before he can say anything else.

* * *

 

The radio station is not as chaotic as Carlos expects it to be, but then, it never is. Even for Night Vale, the employees of NVCR have remarkably poor self-preservation instincts. Sometimes Carlos suspects even Cecil of having a latent death wish.

Carlos hasn't been here since the buyout; Cecil didn't want him to come in too much contact with StrexCorp. Until now, he hasn't seen the yellow and orange sun logo that's replaced NVCR's familiar crescent-moon-in-eye. He doesn't like it at all. It clashes. Which is a funny thing for him to notice, since Carlos has no color sense at all, but it really, really does.

The woman at the front desk is new, and not an intern; she wears a smart black skirt suit and an NVSR name tag that reads “Hello, you can call me Jessica” with a little smiley face drawn in brownish-red ink. Carlos dislikes her instantly.

"Hello," he greets her, as warmly as he can manage. "We're here to see Kevin."

"Mr. Free is currently unavailable," Jessica says, barely glancing up from her computer screen.

Santino leans on the desk. "He's really going to want to see us, ma'am," he says with a smile.

She gives him five seconds of cold stare. When that doesn’t make his smile falter, she prompts, “None of the staff of Welcome to Night Vale is available during the broadcast, Mr…?"

"Santino. Santino, the scientist. And this is Carlos; I know you've heard about Carlos, right?"

Carlos attempts to echo Santino’s practiced, pleasant expression. She looks him over, takes in his lab coat and his hair, and sighs. "I'll call Daniel."

Daniel, Carlos knows, is Cecil's immediate supervisor, now that Station Management has retired to whatever minor dimension they called home before. Cecil does not like him at all. Carlos is not looking forward to meeting with him.

“Is he from Desert Bluffs?” Santino asks.

“I think so. He’s been here for a few weeks,” Carlos says. “Bit of an asshole, as far as Cecil’s ever said.”

“Oh, well, if _Cecil_ said,” Santino says. Carlos frowns at him. He knows Cecil’s not been the most polite of hosts, but there are definitely extenuating circumstances.

Jessica is back, and trailing a man also wearing a NVSR name tag. His suit is terribly modern and his hair is slicked back with gel. His expression is blank. Carlos doesn’t like him, either.

“Mr. Scientist…s?” he says, his attention flicking between them. Carlos gets the sense he is being judged. Santino stands up a little straighter.

“Daniel?” Carlos asks. Not that he really needs to. “We heard that there was a bit of a problem with Kevin this morning.”

Daniel looks surprised. “What? Oh, no, there was no trouble at all! Mr. Free has acclimated to Night Vale better than any of us suspected he would,” he says, and laughs a little, and an electrical spark goes off at the corner of one of his eyes.

Carlos tries to pretend he hasn’t seen anything. Santino shifts slightly beside him; maybe he saw it too.

“I was just hoping to get in to see him for a while. Scientific interest, you know,” Santino says. “Kevin has some very strong ties to Desert Bluffs.”

He pulls his phone out of his pocket. There are continuously updated graphs scrolling across it, and it beeps at regular intervals. It looks very impressive, except that it doesn’t mean anything at all, as far as Carlos can tell.

Daniel looks at it without skepticism, though. 

“You should have filed with your supervisor for permission to do remote research,” he says.

Santino sighs and folds his arms. “Carlos is my supervisor,” he says. “Carlos, do I have permission to do remote research?”

“Obviously,” Carlos says, trying to match Santino’s tone of superiority. “The scientific process can’t be predicted in advance,” he continues, when Daniel’s blank eyes turn to him. Daniel moves like robots in movies: eyes first, then head, then upper body. “Quick progress requires adaptability to changing events. I have blanket permission from my superiors to do whatever is necessary within Night Vale.”

One, two, three seconds pass, and Santino tucks his phone into his pocket and grabs something else, something that he keeps concealed in his fist.

Daniel’s laugh is stilted, and that spark at his eye comes back. “Of course! We at NVSR are very invested in the progress of science,” he says. “Come on back, boys.”

Carlos lets out the breath he’d been holding; Santino slips his concealed object back into his pocket. Daniel leads them down the long hall of studios until they reach Cecil’s. 

Carlos shivers as they pass the first studio. It’s… there’s light behind the door, and the air is not chilled. The unnatural glow of the hall has been replaced by bright fluorescents that drive out all shadows. The linoleum floor is clean - possibly new.

Santino looks comfortable here, though he does keep glancing down at the floor like there might be unseen obstacles. Carlos can imagine much too well what he might be expecting.

When they get to Cecil’s studio, he doesn’t even have to imagine. The real thing is all over the floor: blood, so much blood, spread on the linoleum and soaked into the carpet beyond, the occasional chunk of meat interspersed, the pale remains of fingers under the desk. The signs of struggle, a bit of dirt where a potted plant has been turned over, finger-smears of blood on the wall by the door. And, in the middle of all this, Kevin sits at the interns’ desk, smiling.

Carlos retches, and the three Desert Bluffs transplants look at him in polite befuddlement. He gets himself under control before he actually vomits, but only just. The _smell_ , Jesus. The - the _everything_.

“Hello, Santino! Carlos! What an unexpected surprise,” Kevin says. “I think I’m settling in!” Right, of course, settling in. The voice of Desert Bluffs is perfectly at home surrounded by blood and entrails. Carlos shudders.

Santino walks over to Kevin, making his way efficiently through the gore, and sits on the desk. Okay. His double will handle the - the _psychopath_. Carlos has got Cecil to worry about. He picks his way over the remains of the intern - god, the girl has only been here a week, her poor _parents_ \- and looks through the window of the sound booth.

Cecil is still narrating - something. Carlos knows better than to think he’d ever stop for anything; even Carlos’s life isn’t enough for him to cut off the broadcast, and to Cecil, an intern’s life is worth so much less. But Cecil’s face is a mask of anger, and his tattoos, usually white at the station, are glowing an intense, throbbing red.

Carlos puts his hand on the glass and Cecil seems to catch sight of him. He blinks and pauses for a moment, then shakes his head. Carlos sighs and drops his hand.

He can’t go in there right now. No matter how much he wants to go to Cecil, reassure him, and press him for details of what happened, the show is on. The show _has_ to go on.

Santino pretends to take readings like a pro, frowning in faked concern whenever his phone beeps and keeping up light conversation with Kevin and Daniel. Carlos watches all this reflected in the glass with clinical detachment. Data point: Santino can handle StrexCorp employees, or robots, or whatever Daniel is. Ergo Santino has experience with them. Carlos will have to press him for information. Data point: Kevin is not at all concerned that Santino will mind that he’s killed someone. Santino has watched this happen before, or violent murders are so ordinary in Desert Bluffs that Kevin doesn’t expect anyone to care, or both. 

Cecil’s tattoos are slowly shifting from red to staticky blue without ever passing through purple on the way. It’s never good when they start defying optics. Carlos moves towards the door to the sound booth, watching Daniel in the glass; he gets as far as putting his hand on the handle before Daniel reacts.

That spark goes off in his temple again and his whole body jerks. Santino casually sticks a foot out in front of him just as Daniel breaks into an oddly stilted run. Daniel goes down, and Carlos yanks the door open. It shrieks, but Carlos is used to that. He slams the door behind him just as Cecil turns over to the weather.

“Carlos!” Cecil exclaims. He comes around the sound board and nearly pounces on Carlos. Carlos hugs him and cradles his head, petting his hair.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Cecil says, when he pulls back. He looks briefly towards the window where Daniel is standing, staring, and pouring literal smoke from his ears. 

“He won’t come in while the broadcast’s going, right?” Carlos asks. 

“No. He doesn’t _like_ radio,” Cecil says, with a tone that suggests it’s a moral failing. Carlos would not have picked that as the moral failing to point out here, but Cecil has his own priorities. “You’ll have to stay until I’m done.” 

“That’s okay,” Carlos says. “I mean, I came to see you.”

Cecil smiles at him, but it’s pained. “Thank you, Carlos. After you heard about Theresa, I imagine?”

“Yes,” Carlos says. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I mean, Kevin…”

“Kevin won’t challenge _me_ ,” Cecil spits. “He has to ‘work his way up’. I have to keep him on, Carlos. He’ll just kill anyone else I hire.”

Carlos sighs. He doesn’t know what to say to reassure Cecil; this isn’t the kind of situation that allows it, even if Carlos were any good with that kind of thing. Instead he kisses Cecil’s forehead, above his third eye, and lets Cecil lean against him until the weather starts winding down.

Cecil withdraws from him to sit back at the microphone, but he leaves a tentacle wrapped around Carlos’s wrist. Carlos grips it tightly while Cecil informs his listeners that Carlos has come to see him, isn’t that wonderful. Carlos is grateful. At least this way, if somebody kills him, people will know when and where it happened.

Carlos doesn’t know how Cecil puts so much warmth into his “good night, Night Vale” while he’s so scared himself, but there it is.

Cecil keeps his tentacles wrapped protectively around Carlos’s shoulders when they walk out of the sound booth. Daniel’s mouth opens in a silent scream around a black hole of a throat; Cecil bristles when they walk past him, but he makes no move.

Santino is arguing with Kevin. Kevin is sorting piles of post-it notes and does not seem to have noticed anything unusual, whether in Daniel’s behavior or anything else.

“Kevin,” Cecil says. 

“Yes, Mr. Palmer?” Kevin looks up and grins widely, putting a whole lot of sharp teeth on display. “Did you need something?”

Cecil shakes his head. “You can go home.”

“I’m not finished with these notes yet!” Kevin exclaims.

“It’s your first day. I have some things to finish up here, so how about you go home? You can come in early tomorrow if you feel the need.”

Kevin cocks his head like a confused puppy. His dismay is so apparent that if it weren’t, well, _Kevin_ , Carlos would want to pat his head and tell him everything would be fine. The dissonance when Santino does exactly that is rather interesting.

“Come on, baby. We’ll go find somewhere to get dinner, sound good? You can buy.”

Kevin looks sadly at his post-its, then leans into Santino’s hand. “All right. But I’ll have to come in in the morning tomorrow.”

“I’m sure Cecil won’t mind. _Right_?” Santino says. Cecil’s spine stiffens under Carlos’s hand.

“That will be fine, Kevin.”

“Oh, good.” Kevin’s relief is palpable. Santino offers his hand, and they walk out together. Carlos notes that, unlike Santino, Kevin steps in puddles of blood like they’re not even there.

“Come on, he won’t leave until I do,” Cecil says, and takes Carlos’s hand. He gives the pool of Theresa a wide berth as he leads Carlos out of the studio and back into the sterile, white hallway.

They hide in the men’s restroom until they hear Daniel’s shakily mechanical footsteps walk past. Koshekh purrs - well, makes a rumbling noise - at them, but very quietly.

The cat is wearing a small, yellow collar emblazoned with the StrexCorp logo. He scratches at it and gives Carlos an aggrieved look. Carlos makes to take it off, but Cecil stops him. 

“Branding’s very important to them,” he says. “The collar is harmless. Let it be.”

Carlos pulls his hand back. 

When they’re sure Daniel’s gone, he helps Cecil bury Theresa’s body in the break room. There’s… really not much of a _body_ left, per say, more a collection of raw chunks that might once have fitted in the same amount of space that Theresa occupied in life. There is even more blood than was apparent when Carlos walked into the studio. Cecil shivers in disgust whenever he has to touch it, but refuses Carlos’s offer to take care of the burial.

“It’s my responsibility to her,” he says. “She deserved a better death.”

Carlos nods. He knows what Cecil means. Interns die all the time, but they die in investigating strange happenings, or in the day-to-day of the radio station; they die because of Night Vale. Theresa, well. There’s nothing familiar about the voice of Desert Bluffs.

They pitch sandy earth over the shallow grave, replace the floorboards, and draw runes on the hardwood in red and purple paint. Cecil chants over her in Modified Sumarian. Carlos doesn’t catch much, but prayers for the dead are the same the world over, even here. Rest, be safe, go somewhere better than here, don’t rise up to haunt us again.

The last one is more important in Night Vale than in other places. Carlos draws approximations of the runes Cecil uses in his sketchbook, just in case he ever needs them. He’s not a social scientist; he hasn’t paid a lot of attention to Night Vale’s death rituals up to now. But if he’s going to be in Kevin’s vicinity for very long he thinks it might be a good idea to learn some of them.


	2. Chapter 2

Sleep that night is fitful and difficult, and Carlos wakes up several times with Cecil's tentacles wrapped around him like a cocoon, tight enough he'd have to struggle to move. He doesn't, mostly. He'd rather Cecil stayed asleep.

He doesn't feel ready for battle in the morning, but he gets up anyway, the better to confront Santino before either of their boyfriends are awake. It seems safer not to have Kevin walk in on them, and Carlos hypothesizes that Santino will be an early riser, the same as Carlos himself is. He’s proven right when Santino drags himself into the kitchen just as Carlos has convinced the coffeemaker to boil.

“Good morning,” Carlos says. Santino lifts an eyebrow at him. Said eyebrow is split on the inside corner, like he’s been punched very hard in the face.

“Yes, we have good mornings here, too,” Carlos snaps at him.

“Calm down,” Santino says. “That’s not what I was thinking.”

“Yes it is.”

Santino shrugs and puts both hands on Carlos’s shoulders to maneuver him out of the way of the refrigerator. He produces a pitcher that Carlos doesn’t recognize. From it, he pours a thick, reddish liquid into a mug.

“What is that?” Carlos asks.

“Meds,” Santino says shortly. “Why?”

“You know what it looks like.”

“It’s only _part_ blood. And that’s from Kevin, so don’t go getting weird about it.” 

Anything Carlos could say would definitely count as ‘getting weird’. He says nothing, and resolves to take samples of the… “meds” as soon as he gets a chance. 

Santino pops the mug in the microwave and settles back against the kitchen counter.

“You’re probably going to interrogate me about yesterday,” he begins. 

“Yeah, I am,” Carlos tells him. He folds his arms. Cecil told him once he looked intimidating when he did that; Santino does not seem to think the same way.

“Great. Look, I can only give you observations, not answers, all right?”

The microwave beeps and Santino pulls out his mug, which bubbles slightly. It smells of iron. Carlos watches with a mixture of horror and fascination as Santino downs it in one shot.

“Can we do this someplace else? Your kitchen gives me the creeps.”

Carlos would enlighten him to the reason for that, which is that the Faceless Old Woman is subtly rearranging everything Santino touches every time he glances away from it, but he doesn’t feel all that charitable towards Santino right now.

“We’ll use my office. Give me a minute,” he says shortly, and rests his elbows on the countertop, watching the coffee drip.

“Hey, I know this is weird,” Santino says, leaning on the counter next to him. “Sorry I don’t have a complete explanation for what’s happening right now. Trust me, I’d like one.”

“I know.”

“Between the two of us we have to be able to come up with something.”

“You should have some kind of explanation for Kevin, at least.” Carlos attempts to avoid looking at Santino while he gets his own coffee mug (a present from Cecil, shaped like a beaker) down from the cabinet. It’s harder than it should be; Santino keeps subtly moving farther into Carlos’s personal space.

“Do you have an explanation for Cecil?” Santino asks him.

“I don’t need one.” Carlos takes his coffee and heads out of the kitchen without a word. Santino follows him.

“Have you looked at him lately?”

“There’s a difference between having extra appendages and murdering people.”

Santino snorts. “Sure.”

Carlos’s study is his personal, private space, free of bloodstones and clocks and spiderwebs, just him and his books and his computer; one tiny part of Night Vale that isn’t completely unlike everything Carlos ever knew before. Even Cecil doesn’t come in here much. They love each other so much they sometimes can’t stand it, and need their own places to retire to.

Santino slips past him and sits in the desk chair like it’s his. It takes Carlos’s brain a few seconds to catch up with that, but he eventually sits down on the edge of the desk.

Santino dips his hand behind the desk, coming up with one of Carlos’s secret pens. 

“You have to hide these?” he says, then frowns. “How did I know that was hidden?”

“Writing implements are illegal in Night Vale,” Carlos tells him. “Not Desert Bluffs?”

Santino shakes his head and clicks the pen a few times. Carlos takes it from him before he breaks it - he’d nearly had to commit treason to get a box of Bics delivered. 

“Okay. Let’s talk. What happened yesterday?”

“Kevin got himself a promotion,” Santino says. “I guess either he assumed that since StrexCorp owns the station, that was the way to do it, or just couldn’t imagine there would be another way.” 

“Did you _know_ he’d do something like that?” Carlos demands.

Santino frowns and shakes his head. “He’s been the voice for as long as I’ve been there. He hasn’t needed to. I kind of got used to it in other professions, but I forgot it would happen in radio, too.” 

Carlos sighs. He can’t understand how Santino even survived in Desert Bluffs long enough to think like this. He couldn’t have. “Why would he even want a job at NVCR? With Cecil? He hates Cecil.”

Santino huffs. “NVSR, now,” he says. Carlos bristles at the mention of the new acronym, on Cecil’s behalf.

Santino finds another pen, magnetically held under the desk, and flips it in his fingers thoughtfully. “Cecil hates Kevin. Kevin doesn’t hate anybody. Much. And he’s the voice. He’s not going to give up on radio as long as there’s a chance he can speak to what’s left of Desert Bluffs.” 

“If he tries to hurt Cecil…” Carlos doesn’t know how to finish that sentence, doesn’t know if he sounds threatening or despairing. 

Santino throws the pen at Carlos, and looks surprised when it hits him. He shakes his head.

“I know what I’ve done to people who’ve hurt Kevin. I kind of like you, so I don’t want to have to do it to you.”

Carlos picks the pen up and tucks it back into its hiding place. “And then Cecil will rip you limb from limb, and we’ll all be fucked. Let’s start with keeping Kevin from starting that.”

“I don’t _control_ him,” Santino huffs. “He can make his own decisions.”

Carlos stares at his double. “How long have you been in Desert Bluffs?”

“As long as you’ve been in Night Vale,” Santino counters. 

“Long enough to be warped by the dominant culture,” Carlos says. He straightens his glasses, the fumbling gesture covering up his disgusted expression, he hopes. “Long enough to accept murder as a personal _choice_.”

“Shut up,” Santino says. “You think you’re some kind of paragon of virtue here? Night Vale kills more people than Desert Bluffs ever did.”

“I try to stop that from happening,” Carlos protests. “And Cecil’s not just people, all right?”

“Kevin hasn’t caused any harm to your precious _Cecil_ yet,” Santino growls. He stands up, and steps closer to Carlos - if Carlos were nearly anyone else, he’d be towering over him right now. Intimidating, alpha-wolf behavior; the kind of thing Carlos shouldn’t be surprised to see out of a Desert Bluffs resident, given the little he knows, but it’s surprising coming from a face that looks like his.

“He killed an intern,” Carlos says. “I’m sorry if that’s how Desert Bluffs works, but it’s not that way in Night Vale.”

Santino laughs, like he’s honestly surprised. “Both of you should be used to people dying by now.”

Carlos’s left hand folds slowly into a fist. He doesn’t need Santino’s judgement, and he doesn’t trust Santino to stay calm. “Dying is different from being murdered.” He’s not thinking of Theresa’s body, ripped to shreds and spattered around the recording studio; he’s thinking of Cecil’s face when he touched her dismembered fingertips and the tears he didn’t quite shed at her funeral. 

“Murder is a mindset. The intern was in Kevin’s way. She should’ve fought harder.”

Carlos can hardly comprehend what he’s hearing coming out of his own face. “She was a _teenager_ , she didn’t have a chance -“

Santino cuts him off, his voice rising. “She knew what she was getting into, how could anyone not -“

“Cecil at least tries not to get them killed in the damn studio -“

“Because he’s scared of getting a little blood on his studio walls, not because he gives a shit!“ Santino shouts.

Carlos is surprised when his fist swings into Santino’s face. He’s more surprised when Santino lets it crack into his jaw without a flinch.

“Shut up about Cecil,” Carlos says, because that’s what he’d really meant by the punch. He thought Night Vale had almost stamped out the “fight” part of his fight-or-flight response. Apparently it has not. But now that the instant rage and desire to _hurt_ has gone, he just feels shaky and his hand hurts.

Santino spits blood on the floor. “Don’t do that again,” he says, in a conversational tone. “Unless you’re willing to follow up, which you’re not.”

Carlos shakes his hand out, staring at his fingers. They’re bruising.

His hand’s snatched from in front of his face, and Santino is close again, too close, holding onto his wrist tight enough Carlos feels something pop. They should be evenly matched - same height, same weight - but Carlos feels entirely outclassed.

Santino’s face is bruising too, in large purple blotches, faster than Carlos thinks it should be based on his recent extensive experience with blunt-force trauma. Carlos thinks it should hurt. That it _does_ hurt. His own jaw feels sore.

“Listen up,” Santino says. Carlos has never seen that much _anger_ on his face before. His face? Santino’s face. He’s hardly seen anything on Santino’s face before. “Kevin’s killed people without so much as breathing heavy during the broadcast. So don’t tell me Cecil couldn’t have stopped it if he’d wanted to.”

“Cecil is a pacifist,” Carlos says, doing his best to match Santino’s posturing. It seems easier the longer Santino holds on to him, to stand up straight and mirror his aggressive stance and tone, to ignore the persistent and impossible ache in his cheek. “And with _StrexCorp_ around -“

“Don’t talk about StrexCorp,” Santino warns. His eyes dart around the room, picking out places where there could be surveillance equipment. Carlos can almost physically feel the moment that Santino looks away from him: the release of a joint popping, but somewhere in the middle of his brain.

He recoils and at the last second, twists his wrist away to break Santino’s grip. Santino jerks back and away from him like he’s been shocked.

“I don’t know what just happened,” Santino says. He looks honestly upset.

Carlos moves a little further away and Santino does the same, putting them at opposite ends of the room, staring off against each other. 

“I don’t either,” Carlos replies. “I, uh, are you okay? I didn’t mean to - I’m sorry I hit you.”

“I’m fine. I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

“We should try to - not fight, if we can. This is bad enough without us at each others’ throats.”

Santino nods, slowly. “I’m not going to fight you. I’d win,” he says. “That is backed up by empirical evidence. But don’t get up on your high horse about Kevin. He’s doing his best, and you know that intern would have died anyway.”

Carlos sighs. She would have - and Cecil knows that too; he’s an optimist but he’s not stupid. “Can you stop him from doing it again?”

“I don’t know,” Santino says, and runs his hand through the frizzy bits of hair that have escaped his ponytail. Carlos is once again struck by how odd it is to see one’s own personal tics from the outside. That one means he’s in the dark, intellectually speaking, and very concerned by it. “I’ve never had to try, before. He doesn’t kill randomly!” he adds, like he desperately wants Carlos to know that. “Just in defense of the station. And me. And… apparently for career advancement.”

Carlos rubs his bruised knuckles, frowning. “Are sure you’re okay?”

“Hm?” Santino frowns again, then seems to remember, and touches his jaw. “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine. That’s what the meds are for.”

Carlos looks him over once again, and finally registers consciously what’s been bothering him about Santino’s face. The split eyebrow that had still been bleeding when Santino woke up is completely healed.

“What the hell is in that stuff?” he demands.

Santino shrugs. “Same stuff that’s in the water in Desert Bluffs, more or less. They have an interest in their citizens healing quickly.”

“StrexCorp drugs and Kevin’s blood. And you take that _on purpose_?”

“I have to,” Santino says. Carlos notes the blush that starts at his collar and works its way up to his cheeks. He never realized it was that obvious before. "Being with Kevin - I need something to help me cope. I knocked out all the psychoactive drugs and threw in some painkillers."

“Jesus.” It makes perfect sense, though. A culture that bloodthirsty, they’d have to heal fast or all die off; and it’s not like Night Vale doesn’t put questionable ingredients in the pizza at Big Rico’s.

Santino shrugs. “I’d be crippled by now otherwise. What, did you think I enjoy all that? I'm not _that_ much of a masochist.”

Carlos lifts an eyebrow skeptically. “You look like you enjoy it.”

"I do because he does," Santino says. 

“Is it worth it?” Carlos asks. He can't imagine doing anything so… invasive, even for Cecil.

"I'm in love with him," Santino says.

Carlos opens his mouth to give a dozen reasons why that's stupid, but Santino is practically him. He's pretty sure he's already been through all the arguments with himself. He can even see Santino waiting for him to come to that conclusion. Eventually, he just says, "I guess I understand." 

"You know you understand," Santino informs him.

Carlos sighs. “I don’t know how you lived there so long.”

“I don’t know how you live here at all,” Santino says. “So don’t start. We’re going to learn to get along here, until we can find a way back home. In the meantime, I don’t need you making things any harder for us.”

“If Night Vale doesn’t want you, you’ll find out,” Carlos warns him. “I won’t have anything to do with it.”

“Cecil probably will.” Santino stands up from the desk chair and tucks Carlos’s pen in his lab coat pocket. Carlos takes the few steps forward and takes it from him to hide again.

Santino’s instinctive defense makes their fingers brush against each other for a second, and Carlos feels that odd, popping, settling feeling again. They stare at each other just long enough to be uncomfortable.

“We’ll look into that,” Carlos says, breaking the silence.

“Yeah. …Later.” Santino walks out of the study without another word.

* * *

Big Rico’s is typically crowded for this time on a Saturday, as everyone tries to get their slice in before the week turns over and whatever happens to people who don’t eat there weekly happens. (Carlos isn’t sure. He tried it for a few weeks but all he got was a sternly worded note, wrapped around a rock, thrown through his bedroom window at 4 AM; Cecil said that they were being lenient because he was new in town. Carlos never found out which They he was talking about.) 

Anyway, the crowd is thick, but Carlos navigates it easily, as usual, using the confidence of being one half of the town’s most celebrated celebrity couple, and the fact that no one will get close enough to him to risk possibly brushing a stray strand of hair. He’s almost up to the counter to shout his order into the vortex when somebody puts a hand on his shoulder.

This by itself is unusual, due to the aforementioned fear of coming in contact with Carlos’s hair. Combined with the way Santino’s been casually putting his hands all over Carlos every time they come near each other all week, it’s enough to make Carlos freeze in place and reach for his pocket scalpel.

“Chill out, it’s just me,” says a familiar voice behind him. Carlos relaxes.

“Steve!”

“Surprised?”

Carlos turns around, smiling. “Only to see you here this late in the week. What happened to eating the frog?” That phrase is as much literal as it is metaphorical, as things only are in Night Vale. Steve always gets his pizza with a live frog on top. It’s not quite the most awful thing on the menu, but it’s pretty bad, and Steve does appreciate the classics.

Steve Carlsberg grins back at him, and shrugs. “I ate mine Monday, but I knew you’d be here around now. And your piece of shit boyfriend’s been dodging me all week.”

“Funny, he was saying the same thing about you yesterday,” Carlos tells him. “At least I think that’s what all the cursing and thunderclouds around his phone were about.”

Though that could have been because Cecil _had_ gotten in touch. Carlos knows, from observation, that he’s not allowed to actually _make friends_ with his boyfriend’s hated brother-in-law, but he understands Steve a lot better than he understands most people in Night Vale, and Steve is sort of pathetically grateful to be able to have a good-faith conversation with someone. Carlos doesn’t mind. Sometimes Steve even lets him take DNA samples.

Steve hisses, which, with his half-lizard mouth, is about as close as he can get to a derisive snort. “He knows we can’t _say_ anything over the phone.”

“You have something important for Cecil?” Carlos asks. That would make sense. Again, they’re not exactly friends, and there are only a few reasons Steve would grab Carlos for a conversation at one of the most… Night-Valean places in Night Vale.

“Yeah, but… look, I know you’re a scientist, you got questions, but don’t go asking any right now.”

Carlos folds his arms. “Seriously, Steve?”

Steve swishes his tail nervously. “Tell Cecil I said ‘one week’.”

“That is not playing fair,” Carlos says. “One week _what_?”

“He’ll know,” Steve says. “I told you not to ask.”

“Are you kidding me right now?”

Steve narrows his eyes - one brown, one solid green with a vertical pupil - and lowers his voice to a hiss. “No. This is too important. Cecil’ll know, and you’ll find out.”

“If I don’t I’m going to come get an explanation from you,” Carlos promises.

Steve nods. “Fair. Go get your shitty pizza.”

At least three other customers look at him and gasp in shock. Steve throws up his hands. “I’m unappreciated here, I can tell. See you, Carlos.”

“Later, Steve.”

Carlos texts Cecil to tell him he’s coming to the station with pizza, and Cecil texts back a thank you, a request to bring four extra slices for the Secret Policepersons stationed outside the station, fifteen hearts and a complex emoticon involving a poodle on roller-skates, so that’s all right then.

The pizza he gets _is_ shitty, but it’s not really Rico’s fault; it’s just that it’s hard to make decent pizza out of acorn flour. 

It’s not far to the station from Big Rico’s - at least on Saturdays - so Carlos walks it, but a couple blocks in, he wishes he hadn’t. He’s being followed, and it’s not even subtle. After two wrong turns and doubling back on his route for a while, he gives up, and stops in his tracks. “Okay, guys, I appreciate what you’re trying to do? But you need to go back to invisibility training.”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Carreras?”

Well, that’s not a thing he’s been called in a damn long time. He turns around.

StrexCorp direct employees are always easy to spot in Night Vale. With their immaculately tailored suits, slicked-back hair, and small slashes of yellow in their scarves or neckties, they stand out from the crowd of eclectic, somewhat rumpled Night Vale natives. These two are no exception. Carlos hates them on sight.

“Did you want something, or are you just lost?” he asks.

They look at each other in unison. The woman gives him a Kevin-style, big, toothy smile, and takes a half-step forward on her shiny, pointy-toed heels.

“We’ve been looking for you, Mr. Carreras!” she says. 

“It’s Doctor, actually,” Carlos corrects her mildly. “But I just go by Carlos.”

“Ah-hah, yes, of course, we know about _that_. Carlos the scientist, isn’t that what Cecil calls you?”

“Most of the time.” When he’s not calling him “Carlos, you know, my boyfriend”, but that’s not something Carlos really needs to get into right now. “And you were looking for me because…?” he prompts.

The woman’s smile gets slightly tighter around the edges. “No need to sound so suspicious, Carlos!” she chirps. “We just have a few questions for you. I know you’re a valued member of the Night Vale community, and StrexCorp wants to work within the community.”

“Naturally,” Carlos says. He wonders if he could fire off an SOS to Cecil without her noticing. He wonders if Cecil could do anything, if he came. Maybe Santino would be the better choice; he’s got to be at least as used to dealing with this type as Carlos is handling the Secret Police.

“Now. We heard you spoke to Steve Carlsberg, recently. Yes?” she prompts.

Carlos’s immediate instinct is to lie, lie about everything, don’t give this person a single scrap of information. Night Vale has taught him to listen to his gut. “No,” he says. 

The smile is definitely fixed, now. “No?”

“No. No one talks to Steve Carlsberg much,” Carlos elaborates. Which is, actually, true.

“Not even at Big Rico’s? I understand it’s a ‘hang-out’,” she says, and Carlos can hear the air quotes drop into place, “for most of Night Vale’s most significant citizens.”

“I don’t know how you’re defining significant,” Carlos replies. Also true; he’d like to know what she’s using that word as a euphemism for, and whether they’re keeping tabs on everybody who falls into it. “Everyone eats there at least once a week. City mandate, you know.”

“There’s so much civic pride here,” the woman says, beaming. “It’s wonderful to see. I do hope StrexCorp can find a place in this town.”

“You all are already doing well with it,” Carlos says. He’s not much for double-edged phrasing; he’s not exactly a man of words. The mild praise almost sticks in his throat.

“Thank you for saying so,” the woman says. Her smile twitches a tick towards genuine. ‘I really do think you could help us out, if you’d tell us what Steve Carlsberg was saying. He’s just so hard to get ahold of!”

“Well, I wouldn’t know,” Carlos tells her. “Since, you know, I don’t talk to him.”

“Ah, yes. Of course. You said,” she says.

Carlos stays quiet for a minute, his heart pounding in his throat too hard to let any cutting remarks out, even if he could think of any; the pair don’t move aside. After a few seconds, Carlos looks down and the pizza boxes in his hand. 

“This’ll get cold if I stay. So unless there’s anything else…?”

“Oh, no. StrexCorp thanks you for your time,” the woman says. She puts out her hand to shake. Carlos grips his pizza boxes tighter with both hands, smiles, and shrugs.

“Sorry, sorry. We’ll be seeing you around, Mr. Scientist,” she laughs. Carlos nods, gives her a smile without any teeth in it at all, and steps off the sidewalk to get around the pair of them.

It’s only when he’s sure he’s not being followed again - halfway to the station, within sight of the blinking radio tower - that he’s able to let go of the fear. 

He sets the extra pizza boxes on the ground and pretends not to notice the black-clad shapes that dart out to grab them.

The reclaimed bloodstone doors are, at least, familiar, and he gives them a fond pat as he walks through - he barely notices the pinprick of a sacrifice anymore. Inside, the fluorescent lights are still too bright, and buzz. A small black-eyed robot comes over to inspect him; Carlos can’t tell which way its legs are supposed to be on, but whatever way that is, it’s not the way that they’re currently attached, and the whole thing creeps him out. He gives it a wide berth.

Cecil is alone in his office, muttering to himself as he looks for something in the pile of papers he calls a desk. Carlos doesn’t know why he keeps so many papers, when he can’t write on them in any but the most annoying of ways, and all his useful notes are on his computer anyway, but he’s managed to re-categorize the habit as “adorable” instead of “stupid”.

Cecil jumps when Carlos drops the pizza boxes on the counter, flinching away from the noise.

“Hi,” Carlos says, trying to sound like someone who does _not_ have a secret message and who is _not_ still freaked out by being followed (badly) by StrexCorp agents.

“Hi!” Cecil says, failing spectacularly at sounding like someone who has not mistaken his boyfriend for his awful supervisor and who is not trying to prevent himself from having a heart attack out of terror.

Carlos laughs a little, at both of them, and sits down with Cecil in the oversized desk chair. It’s a tight fit, but the chair is Night Vale issue, not StrexCorp; it’s big and wing-backed and probably a little sentient, exactly right for one radio host and one scientist to half-sit in each other’s laps in. 

“You’re here late tonight,” he says. “Going to come home at all?”

Cecil shrugs, and tugs at his hair with a tentacle, his hands being occupied with wrapping around Carlos’s waist. “I have to finish this… filing,” he says, with some distaste. “Clean desk, clean mind. Scoured, empty, perfectly _cleansed_ mind. You know how it is.”

Carlos just nods and puts his chin on Cecil’s shoulder. Cecil makes a valiant effort to continue sorting with his tentacles, but they lose the plot pretty quickly; they’re only _semi_ -sentient and they won’t continue to do something that Cecil has no interest in at all.

“I know work’s important,” Carlos says. “Do you want me to drag you away?”

Cecil shakes his head. “I can’t make them mad, Carlos,” he sighs.

“Okay. Let me help you out, then. We can finish this up in time for pizza.” He hugs Cecil a little bit closer and speaks right into his ear. “I have something to tell you, but not here.”

Cecil nods, though he looks pained. Carlos knows how much it hurts him that the radio station isn’t a safe place - well, no, it was never a _safe_ place - that the station isn’t his home territory anymore. He gives him an extra tight squeeze, and a kiss on the cheek, before he leans over to grab the pizza and get to work.

* * *

Santino had no trouble at all settling into Desert Bluffs. At the time, he’d attributed it to his natural adaptivity, a skill he’s always prided himself on - fitting in and making himself at home wherever he goes. He’d gotten along just fine as a kid in Bumfuck, Kansas, and pretty well at Berkeley, and _fantastically_ in Palo Alto, and then - whatever’s better than fantastic, in Desert Bluffs. A steady climb upwards. And then, well.

Then Night Vale.

He can’t get anyone to look at him for more than a second, here. Just long enough to confirm that he’s not wearing glasses, that his hair is a little bit longer than it should be, that his coat is stained red instead of black. He should have tattooed his StrexCorp barcode on his forehead instead of his wrist, save everyone the effort.

He’s not settling in. He’s not getting along. If this town were any other town, if he had come here for any other reason, he’d be gone by now. It’s not like he’s got nowhere to go; his old job is still waiting for him, and his parents would love to hear from him in more than heavily censored letters. There’s a life outside Night Vale for him and he could walk out any time.

But this town is what it is, and he came here for the reason he came here, and that reason can’t leave Night Vale, not now. Santino has no idea what it’d do to Kevin to be outside the twin cities. He mentioned it once - when Desert Bluffs got to be too much for him, towards the beginning, when Kevin was the only thing that seemed _real_. He asked Kevin if they could leave Desert Bluffs, go somewhere else, just the two of them. 

Kevin didn’t answer, but the betrayal, the _horror_ on his face, that’s something Santino never, ever wants to see again. At the time, he hugged Kevin and apologized and kissed him until they both forgot how upset they were. And now… now Desert Bluffs has left them.

Santino can’t leave him. Can’t even think of it. The town can try to reject him all it likes; he’s going to show it how bloody-minded a scientist can _be_.

He gives Cecil and Carlos about a week to get over their shit before he figures out it’s never going to happen, and Kevin starts looking at him with sad eyes and picking at his fingertips nervously. It is at that point that he decides enough is enough. If he can’t settle in to Night Vale, he will carve out a place for himself. Both of them. 

Or, at least, he will get Kevin to smile again. He’d settle for that, right now.

He takes off from the lab early on Friday night, waving to Carlos as he goes. The whole rest of the team barely glances at him. He thinks Tim the creepy-spider-problem-having one just lives in the ceiling at the lab, anyway, but Cheyenne, Rachelle, and Jamie have places to go, so he’s not sure what’s so damn fascinating. It’s not like they _have_ to keep working.

Walking home from work is less eventful than the walk in Desert Bluffs ever is, even when he has to dodge a couple rotting armadillos that a shimmering cloud tries to drop on his head. If that’s Night Vale’s way of expressing its displeasure, well, it’s going to have to do better than that. Even the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Cecil and Carlos’s Home doesn’t bother him, now that he knows she’s there, moving his coffee cup six inches to the left every time he puts it back down.

When Kevin gets home from work, Santino grabs him on his way in the door and slams him into the wall, just to see his eyes cross and the ghost of a smile turn up the corners of his mouth.

Cecil squawks, but doesn't try to stop him; Santino supposes that Cecil is  willing to let Santino do his dirty work for him. Shame for Cecil that Santino would never harm Kevin.

Kevin breaks the little finger of Santino's left hand, a warm and welcoming gesture that hardly even hurts anymore, he's done it so many times. Santino smiles at him - he's not going to let their tiny audience put him off expressing affection - and gently bites his lip to bleeding. "Welcome home, baby," he says.

Cecil makes a disgusted noise and stomps off.

“Carlos is coming home late!” Santino shouts after him. “He said not to wait up!” He waits until he hears the sound of Cecil’s bedroom door slamming and turns back to Kevin, grinning.

Kevin licks the blood off his lower lip. "That was mean," he says, with a wicked smile. His black eyes shine with suppressed laughter. "You're being unnecessarily shocking."

"He'll get used to it," Santino says. "And I missed getting to say hi properly."

"Don't go overboard, dearest. Wouldn't want to _bleed_ on the _carpet_ ," Kevin says, rolling his eyes. Santino laughs and kisses him again, humming happily when Kevin lets his teeth nick his tongue.

"Want to go out tonight?" Santino says. "Carlos is staying late at the lab, but he said I didn't have to."

Kevin looks troubled. "Are you sure it's alright to leave earlier than he does? You've only been there for a few days."

"It's not like that here," Santino reassures him. "As long as I finish everything he assigns me during the day, he doesn't care how long I stay."

"If you're _sure_ ," Kevin says. "I don't want a repeat of what happened to your last supervisor."

Santino sighs. "I promise I won't make you have to incite a laboratory rebellion again," he says. "It was one time, Kevin. I was new in town."

"We're new in town here, too. And _Cecil_ won't encourage your colleagues to eviscerate _anyone_ ," Kevin frets.

"Oh come on. Like I can't take Carlos if I have to," Santino says. "I wouldn't even need a weapon."

"What if he carries sulfuric acid too?"

"He doesn't, I checked his coat pockets. Just a couple stainless steel scalpels."

Kevin grumbles a little. Santino pulls on his hair, knocking the carefully gelled strands out of alignment. "I thought you might want to go shopping. I know I'm getting sick of wearing Carlos's shirts. Then we can grab dinner somewhere?”

That seems to perk Kevin up a little. “I’d like that, dearest.” 

Santino gives him a quick kiss on the corner of his mouth, just a hint of a bite. “I’ll go get my shoes on.”

Santino manages not to get too demonstrative with Kevin on the way to the shopping center. He knows their methods of expressing affection are a little _unorthodox_ even here, and he doesn't want to scare anybody off too badly. Even the sight of a symbiotic pair walking down the street, the tentacles of the one digging tightly into the ear and nostril of the other, doesn't reassure him enough to do anything more than squeeze Kevin's hand a little more tightly. For all he knows, shoving tentacles into each others' orifices is as romantic and acceptable here as a gift of steaming organs is in Desert Bluffs.

Kevin is considerate enough, or nervous enough himself, to follow his lead. Even when he takes Santino’s hand, he doesn’t much more than poke at Santino's broken finger. It's unusually subdued for Kevin, and Santino knows it means he's trying hard. 

They’re about halfway to the shopping center, by the rough map Carlos sketched for him, when Kevin lets out a soft, surprised noise and stops walking.

“What’s up?” Santino asks, immediately on the defensive.

“Yellow helicopters!” Kevin says, smiling. Santino looks up, shading his eyes against the glare, and sees two of the familiar, brightly-colored ‘copters hovering above them.

It makes him smile too. He’s gotten used to trusting StrexCorp. The alternatives are not to be thought of, and anyway, the entity StrexCorp has never done anything awful to him, personally. 

“That’s great,” he tells Kevin. “Kind of nice to know it’s not just us out here.”

Kevin nods, and watches the helicopters hover for a little while, eventually smiling happily and pulling Santino’s arm a little tighter around him.

Santino catches a couple of Night Vale natives giving them dirty looks, and shoots glares of his own right back. They’re minding their own business, walking down a public street, and just being from Desert Bluffs isn’t a crime. These people should be _glad_ that StrexCorp is here to bring some order into their lives.

Thankfully, Kevin hasn’t noticed the glares, as far as Santino can tell. He looks like he’s absorbed in watching the helicopters and taking in the scenery of the street, such as it is. This isn’t a great area of town. Santino supposes, much like in Desert Bluffs, science and radio hosting don’t pay a hell of a lot. There’s graffiti on the wall around the apartment complex - graffiti that Santino hopes Kevin isn’t noticing; it looks like some of Night Vale isn’t too happy about the StrexCorp propaganda - and layers upon layers of fliers stapled to the utility poles.

“Oh, dear, a missing girl,” Kevin says, reading off one of the fliers. Santino glances over; the poster is rimmed in StrexCorp yellow, which probably explains why it caught Kevin’s eye so quickly.

“StrexCorp is looking for her? Isn’t that weird? They’ve only been here a couple months,” Santino says.

“Oh, they’re just looking out for the community,” Kevin says. His smile extends just a little bit wider than it should naturally, showing most of his teeth. It’s such a familiar expression that Santino’s heart melts a bit, and he forgets to be worried. He kisses Kevin on the temple - just lips, no blood, not in public - and leads him into the little Night Vale Mall.

“Figured we’d start at the Macy’s? At least I recognize that,” Santino says. “Plus I asked Carlos which stores required a hair or tooth sacrifice and it was not on the list.”

“Whatever you think,” Kevin says. “They don’t have a company store set up yet, so I’m just a little lost.”

“We’ll figure this out,” Santino says. It’s a mall. It can’t be _that_ bad.

He regrets telling himself that not ten minutes later. Carlos warned him it would be unsettling. Santino brushed it off - after all, he'd survived the Fire Sale at the Desert Bluffs S-Mart - but now, he thinks maybe he should’ve trusted his double a little more. This place is _weird_.

 _We bring you not the fashions you want, but the fashions you need_ , warbles a coat rack. The coat rack has been following them for a few hundred feet now. It keeps trying to hand Kevin a floral-print cocktail dress.

"Santino, this place…" Kevin says, uncertainly staring at the dress.

"Yeah. I'm not a fan either," Santino says. He tries to put himself between his boyfriend and the mobile furniture, but it weaves around him and thrusts a frilly skirt in Kevin's direction.

"Cecil has some things like that," Kevin says, quietly and a little resigned.

"Orange is more your color than his," Santino says, just as quietly. "If you can hold it off, I can just go grab you some shirts?"

 _You will dress for your best self_ , the coat rack hisses.

A couple of other shoppers, teenagers twitching erratically to the beat of some unheard music - at least, that’s what Santino hopesthey’re doing - glance over at them and laugh. Kevin looks uncomfortable, and Santino glares in their direction. That would _never_ happen in Desert Bluffs. One of the things that Santino loves about the place is the complete lack of social judgement. Just being alive carries with it a certain amount of respect in the Bluffs.

"If I take it, do you think it'll leave us alone for a little while?" Kevin asks. The coat rack waves the dress a few inches from his face, and Kevin twitches toward it with his whole body, stopping himself short before his feet actually move. It must be taking all his willpower not to try to eviscerate the damn thing with his bare hands.

"Either that, or it'll encourage it. Uh… I doubt it'll hurt you, though, so make the experiment."

Kevin nods and reaches out; the coat rack, perhaps sensing its single window of opportunity, shoves a flurry of hangers into his hands. Santino can't make out where they're all coming from - the rack doesn't ever seem to empty.

He is just starting to be concerned that Kevin may buckle under the weight of all the clothing being spewed at him when the rack stops and jets off in the opposite direction, listing slightly to the left under the influence of one stuck wheel.

"Is it gone?" Kevin asks, tentatively, from somewhere under the pile.

"Yeah. Do you, uh, let me get some of that," Santino says. He grabs some of the hangers, ignoring the angry hiss of a nearby display stand. "Maybe a dressing room?" 

The piles of clothing in his hands are all strange: wispy dresses, oddly textured leggings, almost-standard dress shirts with loud patterning, all in shades of bright yellow, fiery red, and turquoise. "Is it even worth trying any of this? This doesn't scream 'Kevin' to me."

Kevin flushes brightly enough for Santino to make out the orange overtones of his blood. "I - you're right, dearest, it's not really me," he says, but Santino doesn't miss the wistful look he gives one of the scraps of silk in Santino’s hand.

"…Y'know, the furniture might get mad if you don't try _anything_ on," he says. "Let's go find somewhere for you to change."

Kevin hesitates before nodding. Santino waves down a CLEARANCE sign and, with a combination of hand gestures and guttural whispers, manages to extract the information that the dressing room is behind the wall of fish they passed on the way in. Within a few minutes Santino has Kevin settled in a large dressing room.

Then he waits outside for significantly longer than he thinks is necessary. 

“Do you need help in there?” he calls out, slightly concerned that a portal to Nebraska or something might have opened up in the floor.

“No, I’m fine,” Kevin calls back. “Just… some trouble with the zipper.”

“Come out and I’ll help you with it.” Santino’s done this for girlfriends before; he can handle himself. He doesn’t know if Kevin’s ever put on a dress before. What did the coat rack know that Santino doesn’t?

Kevin steps out of the dressing room and turns around so Santino can zip up the back. When Santino turns him back so he can see the dress, Kevin covers his face with both his hands. Santino stares, in silence, for several seconds.

“It looks awful, doesn't it? Tell me it looks awful and we can go home," Kevin says in a rush.

"You look _great_."

Santino isn't lying. The dress is perfectly fitted to Kevin's slim frame, the bright yellow silk skimming over his hips and the hem fluttering just above his knees. He would have expected some oddness around the chest, but nope. The dress could have been made for him. It's even his color.

"Oh, Santino. You're so sweet." Kevin does not sound like he believes a word Santino has just said, but Santino can handle that. He pulls Kevin's hands away from his face to reveal Kevin's three blinking eyes and his fierce blush.

"Really. You do," Santino says. "It's perfect. Do you want to look in the mirror?”

Kevin shakes his head. Santino mentally shrugs. “At least give it a twirl for me. Go on.”

Kevin spins around on his toes a few times, letting the skirt swirl. As it swishes around his calves, he _almost_ smiles, but purses his lips before it can turn into a real one. "It's not very professional,” he sighs.

"Do you like it?"

Kevin blinks. "It's pretty," he says. "But…"

"But what?"

"I don't have anywhere to wear it."

"Wear it on a date." Santino takes Kevin’s hand again and kisses his knuckles. “ _I_ like it. Hell, if you won’t buy it for yourself, I will.” Santino’s never seen Kevin this excited about clothing, barring the time he stole one of Santino’s shirts after spending the night at his place. Whatever it is that Kevin likes about this dress, Santino wants him to have it.

Kevin doesn’t smile, exactly, but his eyes soften, and he squeezes Santino’s hand. “If I'd known you liked dresses so much, I'd have brought one home long ago.”

“I didn’t know I liked them this much,” Santino tells him. “But you look really happy to be wearing it. We’ll get you new work clothes, too. But you should get this,” he says. He reaches down and smoothes the skirt over Kevin’s hip. “If you like it.”

“I do.” Kevin glances around and grabs Santino in a quick, almost-bone-crushing hug, tucking his head into Santino’s shoulder. “Thank you, Santino.”

“I didn’t do anything.” Santino strokes a few strands of his boyfriend’s hair back into alignment. “Thank the sentient coat rack. I think I will. Maybe it’ll calm down with the frilly stuff now.”

“I hope so,” Kevin says. He pulls away a little reluctantly, “This kind of thing… won’t it look odd, on the street?”

“No odder than anything else, promise,” Santino says, thinking back on the people he saw just on his way here. “And Cecil has shorter skirts in brighter colors, so don’t worry about it.”

“If you say so, dearest. ...Can we look at shoes, too?” 

“Definitely,” Santino says. 

Kevin wears the dress - and his new shoes, dangerous-looking black and gold heels that make him almost as tall as Santino - on their date to a restaurant Carlos recommended called Shame. It’s a nice place, and Kevin fits right in, ignoring the stares that the two of them get as they’re seated.

When they’re hidden behind the wall of roiling shadow that protects their booth from prying eyes, Kevin slides around the bench and they christen the dress with a few drops of Santino’s blood. Despite everything that’s wrong with this town, for a little bit, it very nearly feels like home.

* * *

A few weeks in, and Carlos has decided it’s not so bad, having Santino in the lab. Completing each others’ sentences is kind of weird, but having someone around who always knows exactly what his thought process is is surprisingly intellectually stimulating. They keep brainstorming the same ideas but they rarely come to the same conclusions. It’s _nice_.

It’s always a jolt when Santino’s conclusion is “…so let’s experiment on the research assistants”, but that keeps him from getting complacent. And Tim can hold his own. 

Carlos hopes.

Anyway, Santino’s not what bothers him.

It’s not surprising, considering, that he has to turn away when he catches Kevin kissing Santino, that he shudders when he has to move Santino’s _meds_ around in the fridge. Not surprising, but horrible. The worst kind of event: Carlos likes surprises, so he can usually make lemonade (or, barring that, explosive lemons) out of any of the horrors Night Vale throws at him. And he’s recently become used to the idea that familiar things, expected things, can be wonderful, too. But expected awful things? Did you mean: _his life_ , prior to Night Vale?

So the problem is Kevin. Kevin is all of the problems. It wouldn’t even be so bad, but he’s _just_ enough like Cecil to make the parts of him that _aren’t_ that much more shocking when Carlos stumbles on them. It’s almost like his experience of Night Vale itself, actually, though he’d never flatter Kevin by explicitly making the comparison.

Carlos is still smarting from the one night he came home, found Cecil passed out on the couch, kissed him hello, and got tackled to the ground with an extremely pleased Kevin on top of him. He's not sure if he's more mad at Kevin for the blood he drew or at himself for not knowing the difference. He _should_ know the difference. He should _recognize_ the difference between the _love of his life_ and the pale, evil imitation of the love of his life.

And it doesn't help that Kevin has taken to making sad, disappointed noises whenever he walks into the living room to find Cecil and Carlos cuddling on the couch. Carlos doesn't know what that's about, and he's not really interested in bringing it up.

It's enough to make Carlos want to grab Cecil and hole up in the lab for the next… however long it takes for Kevin to get himself killed or arrested. So far he hasn’t been able to convince Cecil of the wisdom of this, so he’s home, now, cooking dinner, and waiting for Cecil to walk in the door.

Dinner is simple comfort food, because a) that’s something he needs right now and b) even if he’s interrupted by something bloody and Bluffsian, he won’t have to worry about fucking it up. With any luck, Santino will even like it. Carlos is trying to make the best of this.

He and Cecil have so far managed to prevent Kevin from making them anything traditional from Desert Bluffs, even if he wants to give them some kind of token of his appreciation for having taken him into their home. Just the description Santino gave of that kind of thing was enough to make Carlos and Cecil immediately come to the unanimous decision that Kevin was not allowed to use the kitchen for anything more advanced than eggs and bacon.

Carlos hears the key turn in the lock and the door open, and smiles as he stirs. Cecil's home.  

"Hey, Cecil!" he calls out. There's no answer. Carlos frowns. No agonized screams or loud thumping, either, so it's not urgent, but he should check on Cecil as soon as he gets done in here. He listens for Cecil’s footsteps and hears nothing. That’s not terribly surprising. Cecil moves quietly most of the time.

Cecil moves quietly, but Kevin moves more quietly still. Carlos doesn’t even feel the air move until Kevin grabs both his wrists. But he knows right away that they're not Cecil's hands. The fingers are too rough, the nails discolored, though Kevin hasn’t had as many bloodstains lately. He freezes.

"Hello, Carlos," Kevin says in his ear.

"Kevin," Carlos says. His voice shakes only very slightly; he's a bit proud of himself for that.

"How was your day? Productive, I hope." Kevin’s light voice dips into registers that make Carlos shiver, and then hate himself for it.

"Yeah," Carlos says. Even. Calm. "Sure. Where's Cecil?"

"He's staying a bit late. He told me to let you know he'd be home in time for dinner, though."

"Did he say what time he thought that'd be?"

"He didn't. I'm sure it won't be long. He's very industrious."

"Yeah." Carlos lets the conversation drop there, but Kevin seems perfectly happy to hang around, even in silence, not letting go of Carlos. Carlos weighs the pros and cons of trying to fight him off, and decides maybe he doesn’t need that in his life right now.

"I'm going to need my hand back now if you don't want dinner to burn."

Kevin releases Carlos's right hand, but rests his chin on Carlos's shoulder. Carlos stirs the rice on automatic pilot. Is Kevin's hand touching his hip now? Does Carlos really want a definitive answer to that?

"I get the impression that you don't like me very much," Kevin says.

Carlos almost laughs. "I still have some adjusting to do."

"Cecil and Santino get along all right. I do hope the two of us can be friends as well."

Kevin still holds Carlos's left wrist. Like Cecil, he's too strong for his size. Unlike Cecil, that doesn't make Carlos feel safe with him.

"Would you let go?" Carlos asks.

"If you want me to. Do you?"

"Please."

Kevin makes a small, disappointed noise, but steps back. His hand tightens briefly before he releases Carlos, and something gives in Carlos's wrist with a sickening crunch.

Carlos curses and pulls away from Kevin, cradling his injured hand.

"Oh, Carlos, I'm so sorry! I assumed… I'm sorry."

Carlos backs up against the counter. His chopping knife is still right next to him and he grabs it. He feels a little safer with it in his hand, but Kevin looks confused, not intimidated. He takes a step towards Carlos. Carlos lifts the knife.

"Yeah. Okay, great. How about you get out of here until dinner," Carlos says.

Kevin twists his hands together, nods, and flees.

Carlos moves the pan off the heat, goes to get himself a bandage, and wraps his wrist. There's no sign of Kevin between the kitchen and the bathroom. No sign of anyone else, either. Just as well; Carlos isn't looking forward to explaining this one to Cecil.

Dinner is an awkward affair, since Carlos, no matter how much he tries, can't make himself make conversation. Kevin is still being - Carlos is pretty sure it's embarrassment, not guilt. As far as Kevin's concerned, what he did is about the same level of mistake as Carlos kissing Kevin by accident.

Santino and Cecil do their best, but Cecil keeps looking over at Carlos and frowning slightly whenever there's a lull in conversation. Carlos tries to indicate through telepathy and eyebrow movements that they'll talk about it later, and keeps his hastily bandaged hand hidden under the table.

"I'll clean up," Kevin says, when the awkward conversation finally dies and their plates are mostly clean.

Santino gets up too and starts collecting plates. "I'll help." Carlos mouths 'thank you' to him when Kevin's back is turned. 

The moment they've settled in at the sink, Cecil stands up and leaves the kitchen. He looks over his shoulder at Carlos as he walks out. Carlos follows him.

Cecil enters the nearest room, which happens to be Carlos’s study, and closes the door behind them. He sits on Carlos's desk and looks at him over steepled fingers. "So, what happened?" he asks.

Carlos considers playing dumb, but it's not really worth it. Cecil will just think it's worse than it is. He drops into his desk chair in front of Cecil. "Kevin happened, a little.”

" _Carlos_ ," Cecil says, full of dismay. "Are you alright? Did he hurt you?" He manifests four tentacles and starts running them over Carlos's body, checking for injuries. Carlos grabs the nearest two to his hands and guides one to the ace bandage hidden under his left sleeve. The tentacles unwrap the bandage, ghost lightly over the bruising, and re-wrap his wrist in a better alignment. 

“I’m fine. It wasn't that big of a deal," Carlos says.

The tentacles pull away from Carlos's body and another four join them in a halo around Cecil's shoulders. He glares towards the doorway. "I will kill him," he growls.

"No, Cecil," Carlos says. "You're better than that."

"I don't know that I am," Cecil says. "Are any of us, really? Isn't there something all of us would kill for?"

"Not you," Carlos insists. Cecil scares him when he gets like this, even when it's something innocuous like the moon; hearing him talk about murder in that calm, thoughtful voice fills Carlos with dread.

"Are you protecting him? Carlos, he…" Cecil waves his hands in his distress. "He hurt you."

"He didn’t know he was hurting me," Carlos says.

"And yet he did." Cecil takes Carlos's injured hand in both of his. The coolness of his skin soothes the hurt a little. 

“It's not worth you killing anyone."

"He should never have _touched_ you,” Cecil whispers. 

“It’s okay, Cecil.” Carlos shrugs. “I just wish I could understand what’s going on in his mind. It’s not your fault you don’t comprehend that either.”

“If I could understand him as well as you do Santino, that would be one thing,” Cecil says. “But I don’t. There’s something very wrong with him.”

“It’s okay,” Carlos says again, and even though Cecil dragged him back here ostensibly to take care of him, he finds himself whispering soothing words to an armful of distressed boyfriend.

“I don’t want him to hurt you,” Cecil says into Carlos’s hair. “But I don’t know if I can _stop_ him, without…”

“Cecil, it’s okay. I’m fine.”

Cecil sighs. “If there is anything, anything at all…”

Carlos hugs him tighter. “You’re here for me. That’s enough.”

* * *

It’s not like Santino’s not used to hearing Kevin rip the heart out of something in the front hallway. Actually, it’s a noise he rather appreciates. A solid victory will put Kevin in a good mood for ages. So when he first hears the violent crashing in the front room, he just smiles and goes back to his work.

What bothers him is that, after a few minutes of struggle, Kevin doesn’t seem to be winning. He hears a crash and then, instead of someone’s dying scream, he hears Kevin’s familiar groan of pain.

He knows better than to show any fear, but it’s there anyway, and he runs out of Carlos’s study without remembering to grab any of his weapons out of his lab coat pocket - just knowing that whatever’s hurting Kevin, he’s going to tear it limb from limb if he has to. If it has limbs.

No matter how many limbs it has. Santino runs out into the living room and stops, because most of the available space - it’s not a large room - is full of tentacles, glowing, snapping across the room like whips. Santino catches one of them on his shoulder and steps back with a snarl.

“Kevin?!” he shouts. He can’t _see_ him. He can’t see him, and he’s in pain, and this _thing_ has him. Santino will fight through a whole _forest_ of glowing tentacles if he has to, if Kevin is in trouble.

All he gets for a reply is a deep growl from the depths of the tentacles. He lashes out at one and manages to dig his fingernails into it, but two others snap into his face and he lets go. “Kevin!” he shouts again.

“Santino! It’s okay,” Kevin says. His voice is choked and he whimpers after he gets the words out. “Cecil, stop, don’t hurt him.”

Cecil? This thing is _Cecil_? The tentacles are slowing; Santino grabs the nearest one to him and yanks on it as hard as he can, until the thing growls in pain and some of the tentacles subside.

“Santino, be careful,” Kevin gasps. Santino can see him now, pinned against the wall by half a dozen tentacles, Cecil’s hands around his throat.

“Let go of him now,” Santino says. Calmly, evenly. The voice he used in Desert Bluffs when he wanted to scare off a business inferior.

The tentacle in his hands disappears into nothing, as does the writhing mass of them, leaving only Cecil, and Kevin, and the limbs that are holding Kevin to the wall. 

“No,” Cecil says without even looking at him. The swirls and lines on his neck and arms glow a bright, violent red, matching the glowing of the tentacles. Kevin smiles at Santino over the collar of Cecil’s hands. The reassuring effect is lessened by the purple color of his face.

Santino rushes at Cecil, fully intent on breaking him away from Kevin. But another tentacle whips out and Santino isn’t fast enough to stop it from tripping him onto the ground. 

“Don’t do that again, Santino. I don’t want to hurt you but I wouldn’t regret it.” 

“I said let Kevin go,” Santino growls. Cecil barely glances at him as he stands up.

“And I said no. Didn’t you hear me? Maybe if I say it again: no.” 

“What the hell did he do?” Santino demands.

It’s the wrong question to ask. Cecil’s tattoos flare up into bright red again, and even Kevin’s flash a momentary, brilliant yellow. 

“I may have mistaken -“ Kevin starts to say, but chokes on it; Cecil glares at him. 

“He hurt Carlos,” Cecil hisses. “I will _not_ sit by and watch him hurt in our _own home_.”

“Carlos is fine,” Santino says. Cecil’s not looking directly at him, but that didn’t stop him from pinpointing Santino’s location before; Santino has to find a way around his defenses. “Carlos went to work this morning, remember? Pretty sure you sent him off.”

“He’ll _heal._ It doesn’t matter,” Cecil says. “You can’t do this kind of thing. I won’t let it happen,” he says, growling once again at Kevin. Kevin squeaks.

“Hey,” Santino warns. “Let him talk at least, would you?”

Cecil grumbles a little, and lets up on Kevin’s throat - not much, but enough that Kevin sucks in a breath. Santino relaxes fractionally.

“Kevin, what happened?” he asks. Cecil fixes him with a murderous glare.

“I was being _friendly_!” Kevin protests.

“Keep your bizarre Desert Bluffs rituals to yourself!” Cecil shouts, and then takes a deep breath, pushing his glasses up his nose with a spare manifesting tentacle. “I _will not_ let you hurt him.”

“Carlos is more resilient than you think. Cecil, would you put him down? Please,” Santino tries. If he’s more… non-threatening, like Carlos, maybe Cecil will give in to his demands.

 Cecil hisses through his sharp teeth - if it’s not Santino’s imagination, they’ve gotten longer - and releases his grip on Kevin’s throat, at least. Kevin’s still pinned to the wall, but he’s not in immediate danger. A small improvement.

“Thank you, Cecil,” Kevin says. 

Cecil snarls at him. “Shut _up_.” 

Kevin quiets, and chews on his lip a bit, a nervous habit. 

“Cecil, Kevin’s not going to hurt anyone, okay? Can you let him go?”

Cecil fixes Santino with the same murderous glare. With anybody else, Santino wouldn’t flinch, but seeing that much hatred on a face that looks like Kevin’s… that hurts a lot. He takes a step back from the pair and shoves his hands in his pockets to stop himself doing anything stupid.

“All right, fine,” he says. “Were you going to _do_ anything, or just menace him for a while?”

Cecil’s anger slips for the tiniest moment into confusion, and Kevin seizes the chance to struggle free of the tentacles holding him. He breaks the grip of the tentacles around his wrists, and Santino is at his side in a moment, putting himself between Cecil and Kevin before Cecil has the chance to sort his many limbs out and grab him again.

Cecil lunges for Kevin, but he stops when his hands touch Santino’s chest instead of Kevin’s throat. 

“ _Hey_ ,” Santino says, which is not the most intelligent contribution, but it gets Cecil’s attention. He pauses, shakes his head, and his tattoos fade to a more normal brightness. 

“Seriously, Cecil. What do you want?” Santino demands. Kevin clings to the back of his shirt, whether to hold him back or hide himself, Santino isn’t sure. Either way, Santino’s not going anywhere. He’s not planning to pick a physical fight with Cecil; he will if he has to, but even his Desert Bluffs instincts probably won’t help him against whatever the hell kind of demon Cecil is. But Kevin’s protected Santino often enough that he’s more than willing to get between him and danger.

Cecil makes a hissing noise which might be a sigh. “I want a promise out of you _both_ that he won’t hurt Carlos again,” he says. “Kevin refused to give me that.”

“I didn’t refuse, Cecil,” Kevin says. “I want to say I won’t - I know it bothers you -“

“That is not the point,” Cecil half-shouts over Santino’s shoulder. “It doesn’t matter what I think, what matters is that you _attacked_ him!”

“I didn’t attack him!” Kevin protests. “I would never do him harm. I would never attack Santino, either. Why would you accuse me of that?” He sounds like he might cry. Santino wants to turn and hold him, but he doesn’t dare look away from Cecil yet.

“You leave Santino bloody and broken at least twice a week,” Cecil says, and grabs Santino’s hand. He’s strong - stronger than he looks, stronger than Kevin, who can throw Santino around with ease - and doesn’t notice Santino struggling against him as he picks his hand up. He points at Santino’s taped fingers with one tentacle, as if to demonstrate. Like Kevin doesn’t know what he’s done. “He drinks blood to keep up with you. How do you justify that to yourself?”

“ _Hey_. Again. Everyone gets a little help in the Bluffs,” Santino protests. “It’s not the huge sacrifice you’re making it out to be.”

“This isn’t Desert Bluffs,” Cecil growls.

“No. It’s not,” Kevin says, sadly, and rests his head against the back of Santino’s shoulder. Kevin doesn’t ever make a sound when he cries, he’s too good at controlling his voice, but Santino feels the heat of Kevin’s tears soaking into his shirt. 

Shit. “Cecil, is a promise that Kevin will ask before he says hello good enough for you?”

“Says _hello_?” Cecil asks in disbelief. Santino has just about had it with his ignorance.

“Yes, goddamnit. That’s all it is! Kevin, baby,” he says over his shoulder. “What do you think, can you remember to give Carlos a warning before you touch?”

He feels Kevin nod. “I intended to start, after the other day - I’m not _trying_ to come between you, Cecil, I swear it to a smiling god.”

“There’s no chance of _that_ ,” Cecil scoffs. “I don’t want to - no, that’s a lie. I do want to kill you for this, Kevin, but I’m not going to. That is a choice I am making. It is a choice I will continue to make. _Don’t make me regret it._ ” His tentacles slip back to wherever they go when Cecil isn’t using them, and the remaining tattoos calm to a dim yellow. He lets go of Santino’s hand.

Santino half-turns to wrap his arm around Kevin, still watching Cecil warily. Kevin’s stopped crying and there’s no sign that he ever was. His black eyes are calm and he’s smiling again, a fixed, public smile. 

“I’m glad we could resolve this peacefully,” he says to Cecil. 

Cecil makes a disgusted noise, looks at both of them, and walks away. 

Santino waits until he’s out the door and then turns to catch Kevin before he slides to the floor. “Shh, shh, it’s okay, it’s okay,” he says, meaningless noise as he pats Kevin’s back. “Did he hurt you? Are you alright?”

Kevin shakes his head, twice. Santino sighs. “All right. Let’s go lie down for a while?” he suggests. That gets a nod out of Kevin, so Santino walks them both to the bedroom.

* * *

Carlos hears the crash and thunk of a door being slammed open and immediately throws his toast behind the refrigerator in anticipation of an unscheduled home investigation. Then he hears Cecil’s voice, sighs, and heads out to help him barricade against whatever he’s brought chasing after him. 

Unfortunately, by the way Cecil is not shouting in terror, he doesn’t think that he’s being chased by the typical monster. Carlos turns the corner and pauses to hear Cecil’s tirade, delivered in a tone halfway between despair and anger with not a little of his radio presence behind it.

“No, Kevin, you cannot just - _kill_ people in the street! Only a representative of government or a member of the Sheriff’s Secret Police can do that, and they’re required to keep it to a minimum of gore!”

Kevin’s tone is far more even, almost calm, as he replies. “Cecil, you’re being unreasonable. That wasn’t very much gore at all.”

“Her intestines hit four separate buildings, Kevin! That was completely uncalled-for and unnecessary.” Carlos stops before he turns the corner out of the kitchen, bile rising in his throat. He can smell the metallic-sweet scent of blood from here. Thank fuck he hasn’t eaten yet.

“It was necessary. She would have killed me!”

“She asked why I hadn’t killed you yet, Kevin, that is _different_.”

“Maybe _here_! If any of you in this two-faced, two-bit town could say anything that means what you think it does, we wouldn’t have misunderstandings like this!”

Fear or not, Carlos rushes into the living room at that. He can’t let Cecil get worked up about the insult to Night Vale - not when both of them are already so angry. God knows what might happen. He gets several paces into the room and stops, staring.

“Santino!” Kevin says when he sees him, and then shakes his head. “Oh, I’m sorry, Carlos.”

“Carlos!” Cecil’s exclamation is more dismayed than Kevin’s. “I thought you were at work.”

“I just came home for lunch. Hi, Cecil. Hi, Kevin.” Carlos doesn’t move any closer, and his words are rote; taking in the scene before him is using more of his mental and emotional processing power than he would like.

Cecil and Kevin are standing very close, and both of them are covered in blood. Carlos doesn’t use that phrase lightly these days; he’s seen so many varying states of bleeding and bloody that he hardly considers it worth mentioning if at least sixty percent of available surface area isn’t red and glistening. At the moment, Kevin is at more like seventy-five percent, fading to brown on his face and shoulders, the areas where blood must have sprayed up from whatever non-lethal wounds Kevin inflicted before his victim finally died.

Cecil pushes Kevin away from him - it’s only then that Carlos notices Kevin was holding Cecil’s hand - and walks towards Carlos, stopping a good foot away.

“Rough day?” Carlos asks, falling back on sarcasm as a substitute for screaming horror.

“As you can see,” Cecil replies, with a slight shudder. He has a line of reddish brown spray diagonal across his chest, and handprints on his shoulders. He was close when she was first wounded, and then a shove… Carlos can almost picture the scene. It’s not the first time he’s had cause to regret his visual imagination.

“You should get in the shower,” Carlos says. Clinical. Detached. “I’ll get some towels for Kevin.”

“We have to get back to work, Cecil,” Kevin puts in, looking anxious, as far as Carlos can tell.

Cecil glares at him. “ _I_ have to get back to work. _You_ are going to stay here where there isn’t anybody for you to _kill_.”

“Interns only get one fifteen-minute break per eight-hour shift, and even that is awfully generous. I don’t want to be seen slacking off…”

“I’ll make your excuses. Stay where you are,” Cecil warns.

Kevin sighs and folds his arms. Prior to coming to Night Vale, Carlos had not had a lot of experience with grown men pouting. Cecil makes it look cute; Carlos is not all that pleased to find that Kevin does too. 

He follows Cecil to the bathroom.

“I’m sorry I had to bring him home like this,” Cecil says, when they’re out of sight of the living room. “I was hoping to get him cleaned up before you saw.”

He takes Carlos’s hand, and Carlos flinches, then grabs Cecil’s fingers before he can pull away. Cecil’s hands are bloody, too, not soaked like Kevin’s, but streaked like he got some on him trying to stop the bleeding, and spotted where Kevin held on to him.

“Get in the shower,” Carlos says. “I’m going to go stop him dripping on the furniture.”

“You don’t have to. I can do it.”

“You hate blood, Cecil. It’s okay. I can handle him.”

Cecil frowns, a furrow forming in his forehead under his third eye, but Carlos squeezes his hand and pushes him towards the bathroom. He goes.

Carlos sighs, and holding the towels in front of him like a shield, heads back out into the living room.

Kevin hasn’t moved, though he has curled in on himself slightly, like a kicked puppy. Carlos shoves a towel at him, and he looks at it in confusion.

“Oh. I suppose you want me to clean up,” he says, sighs, and then takes it. Carlos watches him dab at his hair for a little while. He notes with a faint, faraway, sick feeling that there are still rivulets running down Kevin’s face. 

“Who was it?” he asks, after a bit. 

Kevin tilts his head. “Who was what?”

Carlos gestures at Kevin. “Whoever it was that used to belong to.”

“Oh.” Kevin blinks slowly, like he can’t quite comprehend being asked such a question. “I didn’t get her name. Is it important?”

“…Probably not.” The towel is rather ineffective, especially since so much of the blood has dried. Carlos really wishes he’d brought Santino back with him. He might know how to deal with this kind of thing.

Or maybe not. Maybe he’d congratulate Kevin and hug him hello. Maybe that’s just what you do in Desert Bluffs when your boyfriend violently murders somebody.

Carlos stands there awkwardly watching Kevin turn the pale purple towel red and not seem to get any cleaner himself for a while, long enough for Cecil to finish up his shower and come out in fresh slacks, shirt, and tie.

He looks at the scene, rolls his eyes, and grabs Kevin with a few manifested tentacles to shove him to the shower.

Carlos calls Santino, while Kevin’s cleaning up, and Cecil doesn’t leave until the other scientist shows up. Santino seems somewhat confused that anyone would make any kind of fuss at all over Kevin ripping someone apart. Carlos doesn’t bother to try to enlighten him. He just extracts a promise that Kevin will be kept indoors for the rest of the day, and walks out the door.

From the grin that Santino tries to hide, Carlos can just about guess what they’re going to occupy themselves doing. He kind of hopes they tear each other apart. The mess would take forever to clean up, but Carlos wouldn’t have to deal with them anymore.

On the doorstep, Cecil grabs Carlos and gives him a tight hug, startling him out of his bitter thoughts.

“Come home early tonight,” he murmurs. “And stay here. No matter what happens.”

He kisses Carlos’s ear and pulls away before Carlos can get any questions in, and Carlos is left staring at him in confusion. Not that that’s unusual.

Cecil says, “Please?”

Carlos nods. Whatever Cecil’s warning him about, he went through all of Kevin’s crap to get home and tell Carlos in person. The least Carlos can do is listen to him.

* * *

When Carlos comes home, Kevin and Santino are snuggled on the couch, watching something that looks like a cross between a documentary and a horror film on the TV. Carlos attempts to ignore them as much as he can, going straight to his study and pretending not to hear Kevin’s little squeaks and Santino’s low laugh - why had he ever thought that a house with walls this thin would work for him? But the only radio in the house is in the living room, so when it’s time for Cecil’s broadcast to start, Carlos drags himself out there and switches it on.

As soon as Carlos hears Tamika’s name, he’s on edge, staring at the radio. His jitters only intensify the longer Cecil goes on.

“What the _hell_ does StrexCorp want with Tamika?” he asks aloud, when Cecil goes to the Community Calendar.

“Oh, they’ve always been very involved in the community,” Kevin pipes up from the kitchen. “I saw some of their signs the other day.”

“Yeah, that seems likely,” Carlos mutters. 

“None of you are ever happy here,” Kevin sighs. “If StrexCorp _didn’t_ issue a missing persons report, you’d complain that they weren’t taking an interest. I think it’s wonderful that they’re already keeping tabs on our most vulnerable citizens.”

“We already have the Secret Police for that,” Carlos says. “We don’t need any -“ He almost says _outsiders_ , but stops himself. “We’ve got it covered.”

“In Desert Bluffs, no child ever went missing,” Kevin tells him. He comes to sit on the other end of the couch from Carlos; Carlos moves to the chair. He’d leave, but that would mean leaving the broadcast, and even though Cecil is now parroting Strex propaganda, he doesn’t dare do that.

Kevin pouts a little, but Santino was right behind him coming out of the kitchen; he’s distracted enough by that to let Carlos relax very slightly and focus on the broadcast.

The news that the bird of prey ‘copters are piloted by a humid grey haze is mildly interesting, but not useful to Carlos until he can get one for an interview; he files it away, mentally, with all the other things he swears he’s going to study someday. And then of course Cecil has his science corner, which always consists of things that Carlos may have mentioned in passing, once, backing up two minutes of wild rambling.

When that’s over, though - the special bulletin - that’s surprising. Carlos has never heard of a helicopter crash here before, despite the sheer number of the things, and the fact that it’s _yellow_ …

“That _girl!_ ” Kevin almost, but not quite, shouts, glaring at the radio. “No _wonder_ StrexCorp was looking for her; she is clearly much more lost than any of us thought!”

“Baby, it’s okay, I’m sure it was an accident,” Santino tells him, but he looks over at Carlos while he says it.

“I really don’t think it was, Santino.” Kevin scowls at the radio. “I hope the pilot is okay…”

_They’re going to turn off my microphone, Night Vale!_

Carlos stands up, though why he does it he doesn’t know. But Cecil might be in trouble - the microphone has never been shut down before, not that Carlos knows, not once, not ever, and he doesn’t know what will happen if the broadcast doesn’t go out, but he knows it’s important.

There's a knock at the door.

Carlos turns towards it, but Santino puts a hand on his arm. "Go hide under something. I'll get it," he says.

"Be careful, dearest," Kevin says.

"I'll be fine," Santino tells him. "Seriously, Carlos. Go now."

“Cecil’s in trouble.” Carlos is already calculating how much explosive material he has hanging around the house, and how long it will take to get to the station on foot versus by car, and whether a full-on attack is the way to go or he should try to sneak in the back. “Let go.”

“Carlos!” Santino hisses. “Cecil told you to stay home, right?”

“He didn’t know they’d stop the broadcast.”

The knock repeats itself, a little louder and more violent. 

“He can take care of himself,” Santino says, glancing at Kevin. “If you get hurt he’s going to break. Go hide. Ten minutes, tops.”

He doesn’t mean to, but Carlos finds himself looking to Kevin, too. The broadcaster has lost his forced grin, and his eyes are… not troubled, but concerned. Perhaps even worried. He chews on his lip, nervously, a Cecil-like expression. “I think you should do what Santino says, Carlos.”

He’s _not_ Cecil, but Carlos’s emotional responses are evidently not entirely aware of that, and his rational thought has checked out for the evening. Carlos heads for the closet in his study.

The construction on this house is shoddy enough that, with his ear pressed to the wall, Carlos can still hear the conversation from the living room. He tries to exist as quietly as possible.

The deadbolt on the front door clanks open, and Santino says, “Hello?”

"Is this the residence of Carlos the Scientist?" asks a clipped, professional-sounding male voice.

“Yeah,” Santino says. “Can I help you?”

"You are Santino Locklear?" the man asks. "Former resident of Desert Bluffs? Identification, please."

There's a pause, a rustle, and a beep, but no sounds of violence, so Carlos supposes Santino's method of identification was good enough.

"Do you have any information on Carlos's whereabouts?"

"He probably stayed late at the lab," Santino says. “Scientists are like that.”

Carlos is impressed at how steady Santino’s voice is. He was nowhere near that calm the last time the Secret Police questioned him about Cecil’s thoughts and activities. And the Secret Police seem several times less likely to murder him in brutal and public fashion.

“Hello, gentlemen,” Kevin chimes in. Carlos’s heart rate immediately increases. He should have thought this through more. Kevin, talking to StrexCorp, about _him_? He’s fucked. So is Cecil. He can’t even hear Cecil’s voice anymore - just the faint strains of the weather, coming through the wall muffled.

"Kevin Free? Why are you not at your place of employment?"

Kevin hesitates before he answers. “I have special dispensation from my supervisor," he says eventually. 

"Your supervisor Cecil Palmer?"

“…Yes. I think I can see now why he was so insistent on my taking the time."

The professional voice makes a very unprofessional snorting noise.

"And you haven't seen Carlos, the scientist, either?"

The question hangs in the air for an inordinate amount of time. Carlos curls up on himself and tries to pretend he doesn’t exist. Anywhere but Night Vale, he’d feel stupid about that, like a child hiding from monsters; but reality in Night Vale is malleable, and pretending not to exist almost seems like a viable defense strategy.

"I haven’t,” Kevin says, and Carlos breathes again. “He very likely is in his lab. At home, Santino would spend whole weeks holed up in there."

"Very industrious," the professional voice says, sounding honestly pleased about it. "Well, thank you both for your time."

"Of course. Anything for the good of the company!"

"Naturally. Goodnight, gentlemen."

"Goodnight."

The door closes, and Carlos pulls away from the wall. He waits for what feels like an hour, but is probably ten minutes, until he hears footsteps coming near the study.

"Okay, I think they're gone," Santino says.

"I wish you wouldn't make me lie for you." Kevin sounds upset. Carlos shrinks back into the corner slightly.

"We need to keep Carlos safe if we're going to stay here, alright? Not to mention it's the decent thing to do."

"I doubt they would kill him. Not the way Cecil would react."

"No, but they'd change him, and no one wants that. Especially Cecil. I don't think they've figured out how to handle him." The door to the study creaks, and the footsteps enter the room. Santino raises his voice slightly.

"Hey Carlos, you can come out now."

Carlos stands up and pushes the closet door open. He’s jittery from the adrenaline in a way he hasn’t been since his first month in Night Vale, hopped up and ready for a fight. Santino and Kevin do not provide him with one.

“That was them, wasn’t it? StrexCorp?” he demands.

“Yes. And yeah, they’re looking for you,” Santino says. “Be on the lookout when you go in tomorrow.”

“What are they going to do?”

Santino shrugs. “Bugs, probably. Might sabotage some experiments. I don’t know, I’ve never pissed them off.”

“Great. Just… great. Is Cecil back on air?” Carlos ignores Santino’s reply, if there is one, pushing past him into the living room.

He arrives just in time to hear Cecil, staticky, angry, scared, but brilliantly _still alive_ Cecil, say, _I hope she finds you first_.

He wants to go as soon as he hears Cecil’s voice, Santino and Kevin insist he stay inside, no matter what, even when the radio goes to - as Cecil said, to silence, to a time to reflect.

Carlos has no idea what the story about the man and the birds meant. He’s not used to thinking about things all at cross-angles, the way Cecil is.

Cecil must know though. Cecil must have some kind of point to the whole exercise, and someone - someone in this town must have an idea of what to do with it. Carlos meditates on the subject - meditates is a strong word for lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the sky outside groan and the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Their Home shuffle things around in his closet.

Santino and Kevin go to bed. Carlos is worried for a while that they’ll get loud, because they tend to do that given five minutes alone together, but he doesn’t hear much more than the squeaking of the mattress as they settle into bed.

He gets up soon after the squeaking dies down, puts on a dark, stealth lab coat, and sneaks out into the night. He has this vague feeling that the night is safer than the daytime, which he’s not really very happy about. Normally in Night Vale, nighttime is when all the horrible things come out to play. But they’re Night Valean horrible things; not the horrible things that have recently been visited upon Night Vale from outside… Carlos hopes the yellow helicopters can’t hear him, then tries to stop thinking about yellow helicopters. If they do have the same mind reading technology as the black ones, it’ll go badly for him. It’s as bad as not thinking about pink elephants, but Carlos concentrates very hard on mentally reciting pi to the two hundredth place and he doesn’t hear wingbeats bearing down on him.

His feet lead him towards the radio station on instinct, but before he reaches it, he sees the sky full of bright lights there, and the multitude of helicopters surrounding it. Cecil will have gotten far, far away from that, he’s sure. He turns away from the light; in looking for something exactly opposite of it, he lights on the pillar of terrible darkness that rises around Old Woman Josie’s house.

He hasn’t been there since the angels left (not that they had ever been here or, indeed, existed at all); Cecil is very against anyone trying to study it, or go inside. But it is the least StrexCorp-ish thing Carlos can think of right now, and it is well within walking distance of the radio station, and Carlos has no other ideas.

He takes a back road that he’s not even certain is on the same plane as either his home street or the car lot, but it takes him to Josie’s pillar of darkness just the same.

The pillar buzzes faintly as he approaches it. When he gets close, he can see the gradient of shadow and light, like the line between day and night seen in a photograph of the earth from space. Closer still, and he can put his hand into the shadow; it ripples and whirls around his fingers. It feels like nothing, empty spaces in the air.

He holds his breath, and walks through.

It was a stupid idea to hold his breath. His lungs ache almost immediately. Then his joints do, too, like feeling the pressure change before a storm, only worse and more sudden. The air currents, what few of them there were, no longer blow his hair and tug at his lab coat.

The darkness is complete after only a few steps, and soon he has to let the air out of his lungs in a rush; he walks faster. There is no sensory input here. He has no idea where anything is, except himself, and the sand under his feet. But he thinks he’s walked too far, and his lungs are aching again, with the need to take a breath, but there is no air. He picks up the pace yet again.

He trips on nothing and falls through nothing and crashes into the sand. He can’t make his lungs inflate for a few horrible, terrifying moments. But then he opens his eyes, and there’s light, moonlight, reflecting off the sand below him.

He struggles to his knees and gasps for air.

“Carlos?”

Carlos turns around and falls on his ass on the ground again. It’s Cecil who’s found him - or maybe Carlos has found him? That was the original intention. 

“Are you alright?” Cecil asks. He runs over and holds out both hands to help Carlos up. Carlos takes them and pulls himself to his feet.

“That barrier is something,” he says. 

Cecil sighs and hugs him. Carlos should have expected that, but it always takes him by surprise - and Cecil can get a much tighter grip than most people, with all the extra limbs.

“Don’t be so _dramatic_ , Carlos, it’s a typical pillar of void. I was _worried_ ,” Cecil complains, but with enough of a smile that Carlos can tell he’s just making light of the situation. 

“I’ve never been through one before,” he says. “I’m going to have to study it.”

Cecil lets him go and fixes him with a critical eye. “You didn’t bring any of your experimental tools,” he says. “Not even your danger meter.” He pushes Carlos away slightly and glares down at his feet. “You didn’t even bring _shoes_ , Carlos,” he adds, his voice rising.

“I had to find you,” Carlos cuts him off. 

“Didn’t I say to stay at the house? It’s not _safe_ for you.”

“I’m safe now. It’s okay.”

“It’s _not!_ Carlos. You’re going to get yourself killed, or worse, being out in public like that.” Cecil’s face twists.

Carlos is not comfortable with grown men crying, but part of Cecil being Cecil is Cecil showing all his emotions when he feels able to do so. Part of Carlos being Carlos is supporting him when he does. He pulls Cecil back into a hug and takes Cecil’s slight weight as he sags against him.

Carlos makes soothing noises - he hopes - and strokes Cecil’s waving tentacles until they settle into some approximation of their usual calm arch. Then he moves to Cecil’s hair, gently playing with the black and lilac strands and hoping it’s helping Cecil at all.

Cecil’s silent tears dry up eventually, but he stays leaning with his head on Carlos’s damp shoulder. “They tried to shut down the broadcast, Carlos.”

“I know. I heard,” Carlos says. “They came to find me, too.”

“Oh masters of us all,” Cecil swears, and a few of his tentacles whip around Carlos’s shoulders. “I thought you’d be alright at the house. The Secret Police should have been there…”

“It’s okay. Santino covered for me.” Santino and Kevin covered for him. He’s still not sure what he thinks about that second part, so he doesn’t say it yet.

“If they’re looking for you, you shouldn’t be outside at all.”

“I’m in the safest place I can be. And you’re here. I just wanted to know you were okay.”

Cecil nods.

“Boys, are you going to come inside?”

Carlos hadn’t even noticed Old Woman Josie waiting on her front porch. He pats Cecil’s shoulder awkwardly and pulls away a little bit.

Josie rolls her eyes and gestures for them to come in. She doesn’t wait, just turns and walks back into her house.

Cecil takes Carlos’s hand and pulls him along. Carlos is grateful to get back inside; here, with four walls shielding them from the towering pillar of void, and Josie’s soap operas muted on the TV, he feels much safer. Safety is, of course, an illusion, but Josie is an excellent illusionist, and Carlos thinks it’s all right to believe for at least a little while.

Josie putters around, pouring Carlos a cup of green tea from the pot she and Cecil have apparently been sharing, offering him cookies. Carlos thanks her and sips at his tea.

“How did you get here, Carlos?” Josie asks, first thing. 

“I walked.” Carlos shrugs. “The yellow helicopters are distracted.”

"They're distracted? What are they doing?" Cecil asks.

"They're all crowded around the radio station and Mission Grove," Carlos tells him. Cecil lowers his head. "They're still looking out for Tamika. Maybe for you, too."

Cecil frowns. "This is why I wanted you to stay inside."

"I'm here now, so don't worry about it," Carlos says. "There are a lot of Secret Police out, too."

"The Secret Police are always watching. That's the point," Cecil replies automatically.

"They were visible, though," Carlos tells him. "Not just their usual patrols."

"They're providing a presence," Josie says. “It's important for the town to see them."

"Everyone's angry," Carlos says. "If it weren't for all the damn helicopters…"

"And everything else they've got," Cecil says. "Half the town belongs to them already. Tamika is the only one able to take a stand."

"And that, only because she's a child," Josie says, nodding as she sips her tea. "Has anyone thought to check in with her parents yet?"

Cecil turns pale. "Her _parents_. I didn't even _think_."

"You had other things on your mind. I'll call them. They may need to go underground."

Cecil nods. He wraps his nervous hands around his cup of tea, but that doesn't stop his tentacles flailing in agitation. Carlos takes the nearest one and it's followed by three more, which lace around his fingers and rub his knuckles.

"And, of course, you'll be going back to work tomorrow."

"Yes,” Cecil says.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Carlos asks. "Someone from StrexCorp must have heard you. They can't all ignore the radio."

"I have to, Carlos," Cecil tells him. He catches Carlos's eye. "It won't be bad. I may have to submit to a bit of corporate training."

"Cecil…"

"Just a bit! It will hardly be the worst I've gone through for the radio station."

"You shouldn't be putting yourself in danger like that."

"But you should _definitely_ be running around in the open with yellow helicopters tailing you," Cecil snaps.

"Nothing was tailing me," Carlos says.

"You can't be certain of that. We can't be certain of _anything_."

"We both know that you know that's always true, Cecil."

"Boys," Josie says, cutting them off. Carlos sinks back in his seat, feeling like he's been scolded.

"Don’t start," she continues. "You both have to keep on. Carlos, are you planning on going back to work tomorrow?”

Carlos knows a trap when he hears one; he scowls at his tea. “Yes.”

“If you’re going to ask Cecil to accept that, you have to accept the same of him.” She stares him down. Her black eyes are more human than Kevin’s, but no less deep and dangerous, and Carlos is pretty sure she can see farther into his soul.

“Yes, ma’am.”

"Thank you, Carlos," Cecil sniffs. Carlos gives him a dirty look. He probably doesn't deserve it, but it makes Carlos feel a little better.

"Now you've got that sorted out," Josie says, warningly. "You need to get home. You won't be able to leave here while the sun's up."

“I’m not sure we can leave now,” Carlos says. “Cecil, especially. They’ll be on the lookout for him.”

“The way they were for you?” Cecil sneers in the general direction of the sky. “I’ll take care of it. Just a minute.”

Cecil dips his fingers in the remains of his tea and runs his damp hands through his hair, tamping down some of its usual wildness. He frowns at his tie - patterned with repeating dragon eyes - and takes it off, shoving it in a pocket. His tentacles cluster and flatten down his back, almost disappearing under his loose shirt. When he adds a fixed, wide smile, Carlos can't say he wouldn't mistake him for his double himself.

Josie hands Carlos a hair tie and gives them a critical once-over while he puts his hair in a tail.

"You'll do," she says. "Try not to speak to anyone. Don't attract attention."

"That's the last thing we want to do," Cecil says. Carlos nods in heartfelt agreement.

They hold hands and stare nervously at the sky the whole way back.

* * *

The lab doesn't _look_ invaded. All the deadbolts are in place, as are all the sigils and traps that Big Rico insisted he have. Stepping inside does not get Carlos shot with tranquilizer darts. He looks around just in case.

"Carlos! You lived." Tim skitters down from the ceiling, his hybrid form revealing itself from the shadows like a horror-movie monster. "You didn't run into the stuffed shirts, did you?"

"You were _here_?"

Tim blinks two sets of eyes. “Yeah. I've been staying with the spiders here, since the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In My Home decided to set everybody's webs on fire."

"You're all going to be targets just from being associated with me. I don’t want you in worse trouble."

"They didn't see me," Tim assures him. "I was in the rafters with the colony. But I kept track of where they put the bugs, and when they left I got my friends to cover them all up with silk."

Carlos looks around. He can see six - no, eight large cobwebs where there were clean corners before.

"They've done it to Secret Police cameras before. They'll have a little bit of sound, not enough to make out conversations, and no visuals,” Tim explains. He sounds like a proud parent showing off the accomplishments of a small child.

"...Good initiative," Carlos says weakly. "You're sure they didn't see you?"

Tim nods. "Didn't even glance at me, and I didn't move or speak until after everything was covered up. At most they'll think you have some very industrious tarantulas."

"At least there's that," Carlos says. "Tell your friends thank you."

Tim does something odd and screechy with a couple of his back legs, appears to be listening for a moment, and then smiles. "They say you're welcome."

Carlos nods and, having run out of things to say, goes to his bench. His notes and his computer seem to be intact. His petri dishes haven't been displaced, or gotten up and walked away.

The Secret Police are always polite enough to leave something slightly out of place when they perform a fully authorized secret investigation, but Carlos doesn't expect StrexCorp to have the same manners. On the other hand, they haven't taken anything that Carlos can remember having, and they haven't killed anyone he knows, yet. So it could be a lot worse.

Cheyenne rolls into the lab half an hour later, takes one look at the increased spider presence, and says, "What the hell happened?"

"Strex," Carlos says shortly.

"Did your boyfriend get you in trouble again?" She steps up to one of the edges of the cobwebs.

"Not exactly. Uh, leave all the cobwebs where they are."

Cheyenne glances at the corners of the room again, then sighs. "I guess that's not new. We're not going to get armed goons in here, are we?"

"I don't think they give advance notice."

"Great. Shiny. Try not to get us killed."

"Working on it!"

Jamie phones in to say she's out in the Sand Wastes tracking down cactus samples today. Carlos tells her to stay out there as long as she can, and be careful about the helicopters. If he were being sensible he'd probably send everybody out to the Sand Wastes. At least there's places to run, there.

Carlos makes an attempt to continue working, and after a while that turns into honestly being distracted. It’s hard not to focus on the kind of results they’re getting. He’s just putting the finishing touches on his latest experiment - iteration 215 of an analysis of Night Vale microbes - when he happens to glance out the window that faces Big Rico's. 

Usually it's pretty boring back there, since Carlos has already analyzed enough samples out of Rico's dumpsters to know that they're one of the many things he shouldn't stay curious about. Just six-eyed raccoons and the occasional dumpster diver. Rico himself hardly ever comes out back, and he certainly doesn't make a habit of talking to young teenagers with librarian heads strapped to their belts. Carlos makes sure none of his beakers are bubbling over (except the one full of baking soda and colored vinegar that he keeps on one end of his setup, for effect) and pulls the curtain back a bit.

"What's up?" Cheyenne asks.

"I think Rico's talking to Tamika," Carlos says.

Cheyenne gets up from her computer and joins Carlos at the window. "What, is he crazy? He's going to get himself killed."

"Probably," Carlos agrees. “But so are all of us.” He can't lip-read, which is a shame, but Rico is pointing directly to the lab window, which is pretty clear as body language cues go. Tamika looks up at the window, catches Carlos's eye, and scowls.

“I’m surprised she's even out in daylight,” Cheyenne says. “I mean, after last night…”

“She's a brave kid.” Carlos isn't sure whether to acknowledge Tamika or not.  He doesn't move and eventually she turns back to Rico.

"She's an idiot."

Carlos shrugs and moves away from the window. "Somebody has to be, I guess." 

He makes a few notes on the progress of his experiment - some of the extremophile bacteria here reproduce at truly ludicrous speed - and turns to tinkering with the danger meter while he waits.

It's only a few moments before Cheyenne snaps the curtains closed and turns away from the window. Carlos glances up to see her glaring at nothing.

"She's coming _here_!" Cheyenne hisses, and then stomps off into the back room. Carlos doesn’t move away from his experiments. Tamika will come or she will not, he’s still got a reading of three standard mortality units on one danger meter and nine on another, and he’d really like more precision than that.

When the knock comes, it’s a thunderous knock, the kind that should herald some approaching royalty, perhaps, or maybe a robot bent on destruction. It carries overtones that clearly indicate that the knocker will continue to knock until the door is knocked down if it is not answered.

Carlos answers it, because he really doesn’t feel like replacing the door again. At first it seems that there’s no one there. Then he recalibrates and looks down about two feet. Twelve-year-old Tamika Flynn stands at his doorstep, arms crossed, glaring him down. She has the green and twisted hand of a librarian strung around her neck and dark bloodstains on her heavy black combat boots. Carlos is extremely thankful that her battle-axe is still strapped to her back.

“Mr. Scientist,” she says. Her tone is polite enough for all she’s still bristling with anger. Carlos is taken aback; he doesn’t think he’s given her any reason to be angry. It’s possible she hasn’t _stopped_ being angry since StrexCorp came to town.

“Ms. Flynn,” he replies. “Uh. Please come in.”

Tamika steps into the lab and looks it over critically. She doesn’t say another word until she’s investigated every corner and poked every one of Tim's camera cocoons. She even climbs up on one of the lab benches to check the light fixture.

When she jumps down, she says, “Okay. We're in the clear.”

“There’s a Secret Policeperson right outside the window,” Carlos feels compelled to remind her. “Special watch since Santino started showing up. And my colleagues are in the back room.”

“I’m not worried about your colleagues. The SSP aren’t compromised yet,” Tamika tells him. “We can trust ‘em for now.”

The tree outside the window rustles slightly, and Carlos waves to the officer. Cheyenne doesn’t give any indication that she’s listening.

Tamika looks at him, crosses her arms again, and chews on her lip. She looks like a twelve-year-old trying to decide what chemistry set to use today (okay, it’s possible Carlos was a weird child); she looks like a general about to give orders. Carlos thinks even if he didn’t know what she was capable of he’d have to take her seriously. If only because she looks like she’d whack him with her battle-axe if he didn’t.

“You know about my army,” Tamika says.

“I think the whole town does by now,” Carlos says. “Cecil’s been talking you up.”

Tamika snorts. “If anybody’s paying attention. You notice he’s not always on the air anymore?”

Carlos nods. It’s been hard to miss. Places that used to only ever play Cecil’s show when it was on are now filling the hour between seven and eight o’clock with odd clicking noises, numbers stations, and in desperate cases, music. His show hasn’t been banned yet, nor has he started toeing the StrexCorp party line, but it’s a definite lessening of influence that disturbs Carlos more than he likes to admit.

“Does your army need something from me?” Carlos asks. It’s the only real reason he can think of that Tamika Flynn would visit him here.

Tamika nods. “We need firepower,” she says.

“You have several dozen children with helicopters and AK-47s,” Carlos says. Tamika scowls at ‘children’.

“It’s not enough,” she tells him. “We have several hundred _tactical experts_ , and our hand-to-hand combat skills are second to none. Fifth-grade science was a lot of learning how to triangulate targets. Not a great deal about chemical reactions.”

“What exactly do you want from me?” Carlos asks. He can think of things - cannons, chemical warfare, bombs big enough to wipe any building with StrexCorp in it off the map, but he doesn’t know how any of those are going to help Tamika much. It’s hard to fight a war like this without collateral damage.

“We need explosives,” Tamika says. 

“I can do that,” he says slowly, because her expression isn’t one he’s comfortable saying no to. “But I’m going to need to know what for. Do you have a strategy planned out?”

Tamika nods sharply. “Battle plans are between me and my generals,” she says. “It’s safer for us both.”

“A general idea, at least,” Carlos tries. “I don’t want to make something that’s not strong enough. Or that’ll hurt your people when they go to use it.”

Tamika paces back and forth slightly. Her spine is so rigid Carlos feels himself straightening up. “I can give you the outlines,” she says. “But I can’t give you anything solid.”

Carlos nods. “I can’t promise much, then.”

She fixes him with a glare. “You’re part of this town, scientist. I don’t care what you promise. You’re going to do your duty.”

Carlos didn’t know he had a duty. But, with Tamika staring him down, he doesn’t think that matters very much. And, he thinks, it’s something he can accept, having a duty to Night Vale.

“Let’s talk blast radius,” he says, and pulls down a sheet of paper and a few only slightly illegal quills.

**Author's Note:**

>  _'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:_  
>  _Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'_  
>  _Nothing beside remains. Round the decay_  
>  _Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,_  
>  _The lone and level sands stretch far away._  
>   
> 
> \--Percy Bysshe Shelley
> 
> Much thanks to [Sin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sinistra_blache/) and my friend Kuri for betaing!


End file.
